Comcast Beats Back Patent Suit Against Its ‘Churn Buster,’ Xfinity X1

Daniel Frankel
·1 min read
Comcast X1
Comcast X1

The golden age for Comcast’s voice-powered Xfinity X1 seems to have come and gone, with the video platform no longer billed as a ”churn buster“ in quarterly earnings reports — especially in the wake of a record 614,000 lost linear pay TV customers in Q1.

But X1 is still running hot and needs to cool down, as evidenced this week by a final judgment rendered in its favor by a federal court in Florida.

 

U.S. District Court Judge William Jung granted Comcast’s motion for judgment in the five-year-old patent-infringement suit filed against the cable operator by Fort Myers-based OTT tech startup WhereverTV.

WhereverTV claimed Comcast’s integration of Netflix and other streaming services into the X1 platform infringed on its patent, “Global Interactive Program Guide Application and Device,” U.S. Patent No. 8,656,431.

For its part, Comcast claimed the patent covered an interactive program guide feature that the cable giant never ended up using. Judge Jung ruled that WhereverTV didn't convincingly prove X1 is infringing on its patent.