TiVo And AT&T Settle Up; TiVo Cashes In With Settlement

AT&T's still feeling the epic pinch from having to pay out billions as part of a "break-up fee" related to the dissolving of the T-Mobile USA deal, but here's a little good news: TiVo's willing to play nice... and take even more of their money. TiVo just announced the settlement of patent litigation with AT&T, meaning that the two will now enter into a patent licensing agreement. Under the terms of the settlement, AT&T agreed to pay TiVo an initial payment of $51 million, followed by recurring quarterly guaranteed payments through June 2018, totaling $164 million, which together yield minimum payments of $215 million. In addition to these minimum payments, AT&T will pay incremental recurring per subscriber monthly license fees through July 2018 should AT&T's DVR subscriber base exceed certain levels.


As part of the settlement, TiVo and AT&T agreed to dismiss all pending litigation between the companies with prejudice. The parties also entered into a cross license of their respective patent portfolios in the advanced television field. "We are extremely pleased to reach an agreement with AT&T, which acknowledges the value of our intellectual property," said Tom Rogers, CEO and President of TiVo. "This settlement, on the heels of our recent operational success that has resulted in the growth of TiVo's overall subscriber base, is another major accomplishment for TiVo and we believe a great outcome for our shareholders. The combination of guaranteed payments and future additional fees paid to TiVo in the event that AT&T's pay TV business continues to grow in-line with consensus analyst expectations, represents hard-earned compensation for our IP enforcement efforts. The settlement also provides us rights to innovate TiVo products and services under license from AT&T and allows us to avoid significant legal expenses that we expect would have been incurred by us during and after trial."

More money for TiVo, less for AT&T. When it rains, it pours.