Irell Secures $490M for TiVo

06.2013

On the eve of trial, an Irell & Manella team, led by Morgan Chu, secured its latest mega-recovery for the firm's long-time client TiVo. Motorola and Cisco will pay $490 million to TiVo as an upfront lump-sum settlement.

The total in jury verdicts, judgments and settlements garnered by Irell for TiVo is now $1.6 billion.

Irell has won multiple trials for TiVo, all of which were upheld on appeal. In 2011, TiVo concluded its longstanding dispute with satellite TV provider EchoStar (known as Dish Network) with more than $600 million paid to TiVo after a jury verdict and successful contempt proceedings. In 2012, Irell represented TiVo in securing $250 million from Verizon and $215 million from AT&T. All of these payments are guaranteed.

The lawsuit with Motorola began while the Irell team was prosecuting in the Eastern District of Texas TiVo's patent infringement lawsuit against Verizon, a Motorola customer. In February 2011, Motorola filed a declaratory relief action against TiVo alleging that the Motorola DVRs at issue in the Verizon case did not infringe TiVo patents. Motorola also alleged that TiVo infringed three patents that Motorola now owned. TiVo responded with affirmative claims of infringement against Motorola under TiVo's '389 "Time Warp" patent and two other patents. TiVo also asserted claims against Time Warner Cable with respect to the Motorola set-top boxes. The trial in the TiVo-Motorola case was scheduled to begin on June 10, 2013.

In a separate case, TiVo also had asserted claims under the Time Warp patent, and other patents, against Cisco, with respect to Cisco DVRs. Irell successfully thwarted Cisco's preemptive declaratory judgment lawsuit in the Northern District of California, obtaining an order transferring the case to the Eastern District of Texas, and then consolidating it with TiVo's pending action in that court.

In addition to Morgan Chu, the Irell team included Richard Birnholz, Ben Yorks, Babak Redjaian and Tom Werner.