Company buys a minority stake in Sophoi, which makes the Intellectual Property Licensing Suite to manage and license content like TV shows and magazine articles Oracle has bought a minority stake in Sophoi, a privately held company that makes software for the media and entertainment industries to manage and license their intellectual property.Terms of the acquisition, announced on Wednesday, were not disclosed. Sophoi will continue to operate as an independent company, and Oracle will appoint two people to its board of directors, Oracle said.Sophoi sells a product called the iPLS (Intellectual Property Licensing Suite), used to manage such content as TV shows and magazine articles and to structure licensing deals and collect royalty payments for use of that content. Customers include British Sky Broadcasting, Dreamworks Animation, and Paramount Pictures. Sophoi is already an Oracle partner. The companies announced last month that Sophoi had integrated iPLS with Oracle’s financial application to let companies automate financial processes associated with content licensing. IPLS runs on the Oracle Application Server and integrates with Oracle Financials using the iPLS 3.0 Integration Hub and Oracle’s BPEL Process Manager.The companies will jointly target customers in the media and entertainment industries. Sophoi said it hopes Oracle’s worldwide sales channels will help it to grow its business more quickly. Technology Industry