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Rovi Corporation (NASDAQ: ROVI) and Austar United Communications Limited (“AUSTAR”, ASX: AUN) today announced that they have entered into a multi-year license agreement for interactive program guide (IPG) patents owned by Rovi.
The agreement provides AUSTAR with a license to Rovi’s IPG patents for AUSTAR’s pay television services in Australia. AUSTAR is an affiliate of UPC Broadband in Europe, via parent company Liberty Global, Inc. UPC recently negotiated a similar agreement with Rovi.
“We welcome AUSTAR, a leading subscription television provider in Australia, to our international patent licensing program,” said Samir Armaly, senior vice president of licensing, Rovi. “This announcement continues to illustrate the importance of our IPG intellectual property for service providers like AUSTAR, which are providing an enhanced entertainment experience for its customers.”
“AUSTAR has long been focused on offering innovative services and technology to our customers, as well as providing them with the best content, choice and value on offer,” said Deanne Weir, Director, Corporate Development, AUSTAR. “Our new agreement with Rovi helps us maintain this focus and take our customer experience to the next level.”
About Austar United Communications (AUSTAR)
AUSTAR (Australian Stock Exchange “AUN”) is a leading provider of subscription television services in regional and rural Australia, with more than 735,000 customers enjoying principally satellite digital television services. Internet and mobile telephony services complete AUSTAR’s product offering. AUSTAR is also a significant provider of programming in the Australian television market through its 50% owned joint venture, XYZnetworks, which owns and/or distributes Nickelodeon, Nick Jr, Discovery Channel, Channel [V], [V] Hits, MAX, Arena, The Lifestyle Channel, Lifestyle Food, CountryMusic Channel and The Weather Channel. Liberty Global, Inc., the largest international broadband cable operator in terms of subscribers, holds an indirect controlling stake in AUSTAR.
About Rovi Corporation
Rovi Corporation (rovicorp.com) 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 4,200 issued or pending patents and patent applications 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.
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 annual report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2008 and such other documents as are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time (available at 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.
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