SANTA CLARA, Calif. and COLOGNE, Germany, July 13, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rovi Corporation (Nasdaq:ROVI) and Unitymedia today announced that they have entered into a multi-year license agreement for interactive program guide (IPG) patents owned by Rovi.
The agreement provides Unitymedia with a license to Rovi's IPG patents for Unitymedia's pay television services in Germany. Unitymedia, a subsidiary of Liberty Global, Inc., is the second largest cable television provider in Germany and one of the largest pay television providers throughout Europe. The agreement with Unitymedia builds on the existing relationship between Rovi and other Liberty Global subsidiaries such as UPC Broadband.
"The addition of Unitymedia to our patent program marks our continued momentum with leading operators worldwide," said Samir Armaly, senior vice president of licensing, Rovi. "This announcement highlights the importance that our intellectual property offers to service providers, especially as they look to bring technologies to their customers that help them navigate programming content."
About Rovi Corporation
Rovi Corporation is focused on revolutionizing the digital entertainment landscape by delivering solutions that enable consumers to intuitively connect to new entertainment from many sources and locations. The company also provides extensive entertainment discovery solutions for television, movies, music and photos to its customers in the consumer electronics, cable and satellite, entertainment and online distribution markets. These solutions, complemented by industry leading entertainment data, create the connections between people and technology, and enable them to discover and manage entertainment in an enjoyable form.
Rovi holds over 4,600 issued or pending patents worldwide and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with numerous offices across the United States and around the world including Japan, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom. More information about Rovi can be found at http://www.rovicorp.com/.
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About Unitymedia
Unitymedia is the second largest cable operator in Germany and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Liberty Global, Inc. Unitymedia provides analogue and digital cable television services as well as Internet and telephony services to its customers who reside in the upgraded network area in the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse. Unitymedia's cable network, which passes approximately 8.8 million homes, is one of the most technically advanced in Europe. As of 31 March 2010, Unitymedia had approximately 4.5 million video subscribers, including 1.4 million digital video revenue generating units (RGUs), 639,000 Internet RGUs and 638,000 telephony RGUs. More information on Unitymedia can be found at http://www.unitymedia.de.
Forward Looking Statements
All statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact, including statements that use the words "will" or "is expected to," or similar words that describe the Company's or its management's future plans, objectives, or goals, are "forward-looking statements" and are made pursuant to the Safe-Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause the actual results of the Company to be materially different from the historical results and/or from any future results or outcomes expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors are further addressed in the Company's most recent report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2010 and such other documents as are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time (available at www.sec.gov). The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release, except as required by law.