TiVo has announced its deal with Gemstar-TV Guide to allow international TiVo deployments to offer Gemstar's interactive program guide.

Gemstar's TV Guide channel and interactive programming guides have found a home in set top boxes from Comcast, Time Warner, DISH Network, Cox, and more. In fact, it's an onerous task to find a place where the new Macrovision subsidiary hasn't licensed one of its properties.

And now, TiVo is no exception: Although Gemstar filed a patent infringement suit in 2000 against the pioneering DVR service for its original Interactive Program Guide, that suit eventually resolved into a licensing agreement between the two. Today's announcement extends that licensing agreement to allow TiVo to use Gemstar's program guide in international markets.

With an undeniably strong position in the international market already, The TV Guide channel and IPG are truly striving for ubiquity. Its programming guide has been licensed to the biggest consumer electronics manufacturers in Japan and worldwide, mobile TV broadcasters utilize a version of the program guide, and even Nintendo has put a version of its guide on the Wii.

Meanwhile, TiVo is still faced with recurring suits from EchoStar, but is looking forward not only to a big update to its software that promises a big jump in the interface's speed, but to use Gemstar's guide to aid in new international deployments.