What: Shares of Rovi Corporation (NASDAQ: ROVI) climbed 11.7% Monday after the personalized entertainment IP company renewed its patent license agreement with Sony (SONY 0.32%).
So what: The renewal is Rovi's second such deal in as many weeks. Last Wednesday, shares of Rovi skyrocketed more than 30% after it renewed and expanded what it called a "comprehensive" long-term agreement with AT&T.
Similar to that agreement, Rovi's press release today was light on specifics, but it did note the "multi-year" deal extends Sony's global license to use Rovi's entertainment discovery patent portfolio for consumer electronics devices.
Now what: At the same time, Rovi stock is still down more than 20% year to date, hurt most recently by the company's disappointing Q3 results released in October despite signing multiple large deals with the likes of Time Warner Cable and Europe-based cable provider Sky. As I noted last week, investors should continue to keep in mind that Rovi is still appealing a negative court decision from a lawsuit brought by Netflix earlier this year, through which a Northern California Judge tossed out five patents questioned as part of Netflix's case. Nonetheless, today's renewal serves to further bolster investors' confidence in the validity of Rovi's broader patent portfolio.
In the end, I can't blame investors for their optimism today. But I'm personally still content watching Rovi's progress from the sidelines -- at least until we have a better idea of how these new deals will contribute to its quarterly results, and how its courtroom battle will ultimately pan out.
