SANTA CLARA, Calif 4/15/2005 - Macrovision® Corporation (Nasdaq: MVSN), the world’s leading supplier of content protection and digital rights management (DRM) technologies, today announced that one of its European DRM patent applications is proceeding to issuance, with the Swedish patent (No. 9500355, filed on February 1, 1995 and granted November 4, 1996) already issued. Macrovision believes that its European patent applications, together with a corresponding patent application pending in Japan, are uncontested and essential DRM patents in these international territories.
"Removing patent roadblocks is critical to DRM adoption in the market place worldwide," said Steve Weinstein, EVP/GM of Macrovision’s Entertainment Technologies Group. "With Macrovision’s extensive reach within the worldwide CE/PC hardware and software licensing ecosystem, we expect Macrovision will play an important role in the DRM landscape in the near future."
In a related action, the United States Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences issued a ruling on April 11, 2005 that was adverse to Macrovision in the Ginter v. Benson Patent Interference which is being litigated between Macrovision and InterTrust Technologies Corporation. The ruling concluded that certain of InterTrust’s patent claims have priority over the Macrovision claims; however, this is an ongoing process with other portions of the interference action still under review by the Panel. The InterTrust interference action has no bearing on patents outside the U.S. and the essential international DRM patent applications mentioned above are proceeding to issuance in Europe and Japan, unaffected by the outcome of the U.S. patent interference action.
Bill Krepick, Macrovision CEO, commented on the recent U.S. interference ruling, ""We look forward to eventually prevailing on the merits, and having our patent claims issued in this essential area of digital rights management technology. As it relates to this ruling, we will be considering our appeal options. In addition, we will continue to prosecute our international filings in the DRM space which are unaffected by this ruling. During the second half of 2005 we intend to introduce a licensing program based upon our international DRM patents as well as on those portions of the U.S. patents subsequently issued. This ruling has no impact on our fiscal year financial guidance for the year ending December 31, 2005."
This press release may contain "forward-looking" statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements include those related to the anticipated results of future USPTO proceedings and expectations of having patent claims issued in the U.S and internationally. Because these forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, there are important factors that could cause Macrovision’s actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These factors include, without limitation, the risk that we may not prevail in future USPTO proceedings or have international patents issued. Additional information concerning factors that could cause results to differ can be found in Macrovision’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004, which is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (available at
www.sec.gov). Macrovision assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
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About Macrovision Solutions Corporation
Macrovision Solutions Corporation is focused on providing a uniquely simple digital home entertainment experience by delivering solutions to businesses to protect, enhance and distribute digital goods to consumers across multiple channels. Macrovision's technologies are deployed by companies in the entertainment, consumer electronics, cable and satellite, and online distribution markets to solve industry-specific challenges and bring greater value and a more robust user experience to their customers. The result of deploying Macrovision's solutions is a simple end user experience for discovering, managing and enjoying digital content. Today, Macrovision provides connected middleware, media recognition, interactive programming guides, copy protection and rich media, data and metadata on music, games, movies and television programming. The company also operates an entertainment portal which can be found at http://www.allmusic.com/. Macrovision holds over 4,100 issued or pending patents and patent applications worldwide.
Macrovision 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 Macrovision can be found at http://www.macrovision.com/.
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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 quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2008 and such other documents as are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time (available at http://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.
