In 2004 TiVo sued EchoStar, the Dish parent company, alleging patent infringement. (TiVo has been on the market since 1999, and thus had a head start here.) Dish denied the charge, saying it designed its machines in a way that didn't infringe on any of TiVo's intellectual property, but lost in court.
Mr. Lam said that could indicate a decision by Apple not to buy memory from Samsung, the world's biggest supplier of flash memory chips, amid continuing patent litigation between Apple and the chip maker's parent.