my first and only experience with Tivo was last week on a direct TV Tivo box at a friends house. I must say I was not very impressed. It may have better features (not sure how wishlist differs greatly from the similar Dish feature that searches title and/or description and automatically records) but the real interface did not impress me at all.
It takes SO stinking long to build the menu and (i'm assuming it's configurable) the current show playing is covered by the guide. I also very frequently selected the wrong program because the guide was so stinking unresponsive.
I wouldn't mind if Dish picked up some of the more advanced features but I'd prefer to keep the Dish interface.
About the lawsuit, our patent law has definitely gotten out of control. If the answer to the question on how to solve the problem can be answered immediately the same by many people, it shouldn't be patentable.
I could maybe see a patent for skip30 or season pass (both are probably weak but would be considered more innovation than watch one program while recording another)