Hot on the heels of a major patent victory against Dish Network, TiVo is reportedly getting ready to expand by elbowing its way "onto every U.S. pay-television system." According to a Bloomberg report, the company is currently in talks with Time Warner Cable and other providers to license its time-shifting technology for third-party hardware or software.
The DVR maker already has licensing agreements with Comcast, DirecTV and Cox cable. These range from the cable providers simply rebranding TiVo's actual software for their own customers, to just a license agreement. Cox, for example, integrates TiVo features like Season Pass and WishList to its own set-top boxes. Nothing is final yet, but TiVo's patents have withstood nearly every legal challenge EchoStar could throw at them, so it seems the company has some serious leverage here. We'll have to wait and see where this goes.