JohnG,
Stew. I thought that this was a significant question that you might have thought of B4. Do you think it is insignificant?
Have thought about it many times but not lately. Microsoft and AOL could not get into guides without Gemstar. MS has a merged product. AOL is planning for one in 2000. One uses WinCE/WebTV and the other Liberate. Both needed to license Gemstar. Sony has its Aperios OS and has licensed Gemstar. Thomson founded OpenTV with SUN. Thomson's lawyers told them that they would need to license.
Gemstar's licensees are Microsoft, AOL, Sony, AT&T Broadband, TV Guide (Liberty Media & News Corp), Thomson, Matsushita, Philips, JVC, Sharp, Zenith, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Uniden and more. I have to believe that the engineers and patent attorneys at these companies concluded something.
Regards
Stew
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