TiVo 2015 Annual Report Download - page 11

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 11 of the 2015 TiVo annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 141

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76
  • 77
  • 78
  • 79
  • 80
  • 81
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 87
  • 88
  • 89
  • 90
  • 91
  • 92
  • 93
  • 94
  • 95
  • 96
  • 97
  • 98
  • 99
  • 100
  • 101
  • 102
  • 103
  • 104
  • 105
  • 106
  • 107
  • 108
  • 109
  • 110
  • 111
  • 112
  • 113
  • 114
  • 115
  • 116
  • 117
  • 118
  • 119
  • 120
  • 121
  • 122
  • 123
  • 124
  • 125
  • 126
  • 127
  • 128
  • 129
  • 130
  • 131
  • 132
  • 133
  • 134
  • 135
  • 136
  • 137
  • 138
  • 139
  • 140
  • 141

Table of Contents
Operations and Technical Support
We have technical support and certification operations to support our products:
Intellectual Property Rights, including Copyrights, Trademarks and Tradenames
We operate in an industry in which innovation, investment in new ideas and protection of our IP rights are critical for success. We protect our
innovations and inventions through a variety of means, including but not limited to applying for patent protection domestically and internationally.
As of
December 31, 2015
, we held approximately 1,200 U.S. patents and had approximately 500 U.S. patent applications pending. As of
December 31, 2015
, we also had approximately 3,100 foreign patents and approximately 700 foreign patent applications pending. Each of our issued patents
will expire at a different time based on the particular filing date of that respective patent, with expiration dates as late as 2034.
We own or have rights to various copyrights, trademarks and trade names used in our business. These include, but are not limited to, Rovi,
FanTV, TV Guide, Passport, Rovi Guides, G
-
GUIDE, iGuide and Gemstar.
Research and Development
Our internal research and development efforts are focused on developing enhancements to existing products and new applications for our current
technologies. We have acquired other companies and technologies to supplement our research and development expenditures. Our Research and
development expenses were
$100.6 million
,
$107.1 million
and
$111.3 million
for the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014 and 2013
.
Competition
IPGs
There are a number of companies that produce and market IPGs as well as television schedule information in various formats that compete, or we
believe will compete, with our IPG products and services. These alternative formats include passive and interactive on
-
screen electronic guide services and
online listings.
In the service provider IPG area, we compete against Cisco, Kudelski, SA, TiVo Inc. and multiple set
-
top box manufacturers' embedded guides.
Another common competitor we encounter is a customer who chooses to build its own IPG, under license with our intellectual property. We believe that we
provide a strong alternative to “do
-
it
-
yourself,” as we have innovative, high
-
quality products ready to be implemented, with integrated data distribution
infrastructure and content as well as third party services (such as VOD services). We differentiate our products by continuing to integrate our products
into a suite of solutions and services for our customers. We believe our solutions can speed our customers' time to market, be deployed at a lower cost than
internally built products, and can be superior to “do
-
it
-
yourself” products. For those that choose to do it themselves, we have added the FanTV platform
that combines Rovi's cloud services for discovery, personalization, metadata and device management into a single platform to provide them the full suite of
services to power their next generation media experience.
Many of our competitors and other companies and individuals have obtained, and may be expected to obtain in the future, patents that may
directly or indirectly affect the products or services offered or under development by us. We are currently developing a variety of enhancements to our
IPGs and other products and services. We offer no assurance that any
9
•
We provide post
-
sales training, technical support and integration services to service provider licensees of our product application software
as part of their service offerings.
•
We operate the internet
-
based services needed to power the Rovi FanTV platform. This includes data delivery, search, recommendation,
advertising, device management and media recognition.
•
We provide broadcast delivery of television line
-
up data and advertising to TVs and set
-
top boxes enabled with our IPGs in major European
markets and in Japan. This service provides the data that populates the guides with the listings and advertising necessary to make the IPG
useful to a consumer. In addition, we deliver, via the internet, similar line
-
up and advertising data in North America.
•
We support our customers' efforts to help ensure our IPGs operate properly within their devices by offering porting services.
•
We provide customer care for IPG customers following deployment of our IPGs. This service is focused on resolving issues with data and
advertising distribution as well as functional issues for a consumer.