Enlarge / Netflix company headquarters in Los Gatos, California. (credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
A five-year-old patent brawl between Netflix and Rovi (now TiVo) has reached a turning point, with the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upholding a major lower-court victory by Netflix.
The litigation between the two companies began in 2011, when Netflix sued to invalidate a batch of patents on Rovi’s digital entertainment guides, for which Rovi had demanded Netflix pay licensing fees.
The patents described ways of navigating TV and other video content online. Even after Netflix lawyers bested Rovi at the International Trade Commission and then pounded all five patents out of existence at district court last year, Rovi said it would push forward with an appeal.
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Source: Ars Technica – Rovi’s “TV Guide” patents, now owned by TiVo, are DOA at appeals court