Microsoft
filed a patent infringement suit against TiVo late yesterday. Microsoft says it's really about defending AT&T, which is one of the companies TiVo has already sued over patents.
TIVO says it is too. From the San Jose Business Journal:
The action is seen as being related to a lawsuit that Alviso-based TiVo filed against AT&T Inc., claiming the company's U-Verse TV service illegally uses its "time-warping" technology in its digital video recorders.
TiVo is involved in similar disputes with Verizon Communications Inc., the Dish Network and EchoStar Corp.AT&T service uses Microsoft technology for video delivery and digital recording.
That's, in my view, Microsoft spin, that it's doing this to help out AT&T. I would describe it more like this: remember when SCO sued AutoZone for using Linux in its business? AutoZone didn't write Linux. It just used it. So SCO sued an end user. Similarly, TiVo is suing AT&T. But AT&T didn't write Microsoft Mediaroom, the implicated software. Microsoft did. So naturally, AT&T has demanded that Microsoft indemnify AT&T, and so here comes Microsoft, essentially defending itself, because if AT&T loses, it's Microsoft who has to shell out the bucks.
More...
