Morgan Chu

Chu got another big payday for his client TiVo Inc. The latest victory came against Motorola Mobility Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc.

Chu and co-counsel Andrei Iancu have already won a string of victories over the Alviso-based company's DVR "Time Warp" patent against several large companies.

During a pretrial hearing, Chu and colleagues persuaded an Eastern District of Texas judge to adopt TiVo's preferred way to describing the terms in the key patent. He also defeated an effort by Cisco to pursue its own declaratory judgment lawsuit in the Northern District of California, moving the case to the Lone Star state. Cisco Systems Inc. v. TiVo Inc., CV12-434 (E.D. Texas, filed Aug. 13, 2012).

That led to a $490 million settlement with both companies in June, and a dismissal of the case the following month. Motorola Mobility Inc. v. TiVo Inc., CV11-53 (E.D. Texas, filed Feb. 25, 2011).

Those agreements brought the total amount in settlement payments secured in the TiVo cases to more than $1.6 billion.

"They've battled some of the biggest, most litigation-savvy corporations in the world," Chu said. "It was a daunting task for TiVo, which is modest size, but has a lot of heart and fabulous technology."

Meanwhile, Chu is representing the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which is taking on Apple Inc. in a patent infringement dispute involving microprocessor technology. WARF is the patent licensing arm of the University of Wisconsin.

In January, his client filed suit against Apple alleging that the company is infringing WARF's patent related to the technology in Apple's A7 processor, used in the iPhone 5S, iPad Air and other devices.

"Apple is accustomed to litigation and we expect them to fight tooth and nail," Chu said. "At the same time, the University of Wisconsin and its patent litigation arm also is accustomed to standing up for its rights. The university wants a fair and reasonable royalty for the use of the technology it develops."

- Pat Broderick