El Segundo-based ContentGuard, which develops and owns a large portfolio of patents in the digital rights management (DRM) space, has been acquired by publicly held Pendrell Corporation. According to Pendrell, it is paying $90.1M in cash to acquire ContentGuard, which owns over 260 patents and 160 pending patent applications around digital rights management (DRM). ContentGuard lists Microsoft Corp., Thomson, and Time Warner as investors; Pendrell said that Time Warner will own 9.9 percent of ContentGuard after the transaction, and also get a board seat at ContentGuard. ContentGuard will remain in El Segundo. Pendrell said that ContentGuard was originally spun out of Xerox PARC in 2000.