TiVo announced that Time Warner Inc.’s HBO has signed a long-term intellectual property license.
HBO’s new license will provide it access to the TiVo patent portfolios and the over-the-top assets of the Intellectual Ventures patent portfolio under the TiVo/IV licensing partnership.
“Our license agreement with HBO reinforces the value our innovative patent portfolios deliver to the OTT industry as we continue helping companies quickly adapt to a rapidly changing and fragmented media industry,” said Samir Armaly, executive vice president of intellectual property and licensing at Rovi Corporation, a TiVo company, in a statement.
Last year, prior to Rovi acquiring TiVo for $1.1 billion and taking on the TiVo name, Rovi signed an exclusive OTT partnership with Intellectual Ventures to combine their patents. The combined portfolio addresses OTT aspects including content management and delivery, streaming technologies and consumer-facing features and functionality.
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“We chose Rovi as a partner because of its world-class licensing program and valuable patent portfolio, which is well established within the media and entertainment market,” said Cory Van Arsdale, senior vice president of global licensing at Intellectual Ventures, in a statement. “By bringing our patent portfolios together, we’ve created one of the most robust entertainment and media patent portfolios available anywhere in the world. This gives us an unparalleled opportunity to help drive further innovation for our joint customers in the rapidly growing OTT industry.”
For HBO, the OTT licensing deal comes amid reports that the company is disappointed in the growth of its HBO Now direct-to-consumer product, which appears to have been hovering around 1 million subscribers for some time now.
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During HBO’s third-quarter earnings call last year, CEO Richard Plepler seemed encouraged by the service’s performance.
“On your OTT question, we couldn't be more pleased or enthusiastic about what we are seeing this year. We have seen substantial growth with HBO Now. We expect that to continue, of course, across all of our digital distribution, including HBO Go,” Plepler said.