TiVo patent settlements with Google, Cisco, Time Warner yield $490 million

We now have a dollar amount and a couple of other companies to assign to TiVo’s settlement of long-running patent disputes. Thursday, we heard that TiVo had finally settled a suit it had originally filed against Motorola (since bought by Google and split with Arris), and in a press release on Friday TiVo revealed that it has also settled with Cisco and Time Warner Cable. Together, Google and Cisco will pay TiVo a lump sum of $490 million and have entered into an ongoing licensing agreement with Google and Cisco. Other than being “pleased with the outcome” of seeing all pending litigation dismissed, it’s not clear whether Time Warner Cable will be paying TiVo.

The settlement apparently didn’t please investors, but the if the resultant stock drop sticks around then TiVo’s plans to buy back somewhere between $100 and $200 million worth of stock could make a lot of sense. TiVo had been embroiled in a large number of patent cases over the years, but has settled with with multiple companies since the beginning of 2012, including Verizon, Microsoft, and AT&T. TiVo says that its total awards and settlements stemming from IP disputes now comes to about $1.6 billion. All of those settlements should give TiVo a clearer future — just not one that will include stopping competitors from selling DVR products or hopes of even larger payouts due to litigation.