SonicBlue Comes Out Swinging

from the exclusive-feature dept

Forbes is running a profile of what the current situation is for SonicBlue. A few months back, we spoke about how their new CEO was looking to get out of the various lawsuits they were involved in with the entertainment industry. However, this story shows that he's realized one huge benefit of the lawsuits. The main focus of the lawsuit is over the commercial skipping feature, which is already found in plenty of VCRs. The intellectual property on that feature isn't even SonicBlue's. However, no other digital video recorder company is willing to touch that feature until they see what happens with the SonicBlue lawsuit. This means they have an instant exclusivity on the feature, and are looking to exploit that for all it's worth. They're also going to release cheaper boxes and push them into more typical retail channels.