By Rick Manning
Last month, I wrote a piece for The Hill bringing attention to a very important battle over our Intellectual Property Rights here in the United States. Comcast, a massive cable company is stealing the Intellectual Property and Innovation of TiVo. This case has been going on now well over a year, and Comcast fails to take responsibility for its infringement of TiVo’s patents. A judge at the International Trade Commission (ITC) has agreed and sided with TiVo granting an exclusion order to prevent Comcast from importing its foreign made set top boxes – which are infringing TiVo patents into the US.
Now, Comcast and its allies are arguing for a delay of any exclusion order that does get implemented. In recent filings during the public interest comment period, Comcast supporters tried to make the case for delayed implementation of an exclusion order and want to prolong the process of TiVo being able to protect its own IP. Not only has Comcast refused to pay TiVo for their innovative platform that attracts consumers – now they and their allies are seeking to drag out the remedy which is critical to end the patent theft. A delay only gives Comcast time to potentially find other suppliers and game the system – which is not how the ITC and our patent protection system are designed to work.
The reality is that Comcast has had more than enough time to seek a resolution, yet they refused to either pay TiVo for their services, or stop using the patented technology that they’re infringing upon.
Comcast is going against the tradition of patent protection that our founders enshrined and are setting a dangerous precedent for future inventors. Comcast doesn’t need more time, they need to stop stealing the hard work and innovation of other companies. The ITC should move forward and expeditiously enforce this order and reject any calls for delay. They are stealing TiVo’s property now and to delay justice is to deny justice.
Rick Manning is President of Americans for Limited Government
