Bruce Davis (video game industry)

Infobox Person


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name = Bruce Davis
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education = J.D. from Columbia University
occupation = CEO
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Bruce Davis (born 1952) is a American businessman, currently CEO and chairman of Digimarc Corporation. Formerly the head of Activision, he is known for his role in the development of the video game industry and as lead inventor of the world's most broadly deployed interactive on screen TV guide.

A prolific inventor, Davis has been awarded more than 50 patents on television user interface improvements and other innovations in media management and security. In 2003, Mr. Davis was named Ernst & Young's Pacific Northwest Entrepreneur Of The Year for the technology category. He has a law degree from Columbia University, and a B.S. in accounting and psychology and an M.A. in criminal justice from University at Albany, SUNY.

He began his professional career by establishing the intellectual property practice at the firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in San Francisco, California.

From 1986 to 1991, Davis was chairman and CEO of Activision. Taking over from Jim Levy after sixteen consecutive quarters of multimillion dollar losses and the acquisition of text adventure producer Infocom, Davis led the company to a profit in his first year at the helm on strong sales growth. The turnaround effort was stymied in 1990 when the company was hit with a huge patent damages award resulting from infringement of patents held by Philips. Robert Kotick, backed by Steve Wynn of Mirage Resorts, staged a successful hostile takeover. Kotick and his team later filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in cooperation with Philips in a recapitalization of Activision.

Starting in 1992, Davis founded and served as president of TV Guide on Screen, a joint venture of News Corporation and TCI that supplied electronic guides and navigational software for the cable television market. The company later merged with Prevue Networks, then with TV Guide. TV Guide later merged with Gemstar International. The resulting Gemstar-TV Guide International was acquired in 2008 by Macrovision.

Davis is chairman and CEO of Digimarc. Davis led Digimarc from start up in 1997 to a $100mm+ public company supplying mission critical technologies to national and state governments and to the media industry. Digimarc sold its ID Systems business unit to L-1 Identity Solutions, Inc in 2008 for $310 million in cash and now focuses on leading developments in intuitive computing and improved media management. [cite web
url = http://www.digimarc.com/corp/execs.asp#davis
title = Executive Team
accessdate = 2007-04-20
language = English]

References

External links

* [http://securitystockwatch.com/Interviews/Conversation_DMRC.html SecurityStockWatch interview with Bruce Davis]

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NAME= Davis, Bruce
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SHORT DESCRIPTION= American businessman
DATE OF BIRTH=1950
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