Another Day, Another Nielsen Suit Against VideoAmp

A significant part of the battle for the future of television measurement is taking place not in the lab, or even in the market, but in court.

Nielsen has sued a number of measurement companies for infringing patents. One of those suits targeted VideoAmp, one of the tech-based upstarts challenging Nielsen’s domination of the TV ratings business.

A suit brought last year by Nielsen was dismissed on March 31 by Delaware U.S. District Judge Richard Andrews. VideoAmp barely had time to celebrate its legal victory when Nielsen filed another suit in Delaware Court accusing VideoAmp of infringing on another of Nielsen’s patents.

Nielsen released a statement explaining its litigiousness.

“Nielsen is the top innovator in audience measurement solutions. The patent that Nielsen is enforcing against VideoAmp today has a priority date from 2013 -- over a year before VideoAmp was founded. Nielsen welcomes competition in the marketplace but marketplace participants should use their own technology, not use Nielsen's hard-earned intellectual property without authorization,” Nielsen said in a statement. “As is standard business practice, Nielsen will continue to vigorously defend our intellectual property rights to the fullest extent possible.

For its part, VideoAmp said Nielsen is trying to use the courts to restrain competition.

"The timing of this comes as no surprise on the heels of their prior claim being dismissed earlier this week. It is another desperate lawsuit from Nielsen that we believe is intended to stifle innovation and competition by burdening growing companies with distraction and a drain on resources,” VideoAmp said in a statement. “These tactics will not slow us down, we will continue to deliver superior technology and offer optionality to our clients.”

According to the new lawsuit, Nielsen charges that VideoAmp infringed on its patent No. 12,063,402, which covers the way Nielsen uses mobile devices to associate audience demographic information with exposure data, both in home and out of home.

“The invention enables audience measurement entities to use location to associate media content playing at a reference location with the demographics of the people consuming the content,” according to the suit.

Nielsen asserts that VideoAmp’s system uses information from cellphones to similarly gather demographic information about media consumers.

“VideoAmp uses the infringing apparatus and the performance of the infringing method to compete with Nielsen and to provide the allegedly ‘alternative’ currency,” the suit said.

Nielsen said it is seeing a judgment that VideoAmp willfully infringed on the patent and an order permanently enjoining VideoAmp from further acts of infringement.

It is also seeking “damages adequate to compensate Nielsen for defendant’s infringement of the ‘402 patent, including increased damages up to three times the amount found or assessed” plus court costs and lawyers’ fees.

In the earlier case, Nielsen claimed VideoAmp infringed on two other patents that covered methods for modeling audience viewing behavior. The judge dismissed the case because, according to the ruling, the patent covers an abstract idea and “fails to recite an inventive concept. … I conclude that Nielsen’s asserted claims are directed to unpatentable subject matter.”

In an internal memo, VideoAmp executive chairman Peter Liguori cheered the dismissal of the suit.

“As you may have heard, WE HAVE WON OUR MOTION TO DISMISS THE NIELSEN PATENT CASE!!! This means that the litigation is over and the case is dismissed. We are pleased that the District Court of Delaware found Nielsen's asserted patents to be legally flawed such that no relief could be granted on their claims, and that there was no legal basis for the lawsuit to proceed. In our opinion, Nielsen has been using its deep pockets and invalid patents to launch frivolous claims against us. We believe this was a brazen attempt to drain our financial resources, taint our client relationships, and take our eyes off of our mission to provide best-in-class tech, data and client service. We take their failed lawsuit as a sign of weakness that they would rather fight in the courts and in the press, and not on the field of innovation and client-success,” Ligouri said.

“While we may have more battles in the future, we have great momentum to gain from this win and this reaffirms our point: as we continue to play our own game and keep our client’s success front and center, VideoAmp cannot, and will not, be defeated.

“Congratulations to you all. You all are symbols of strength, tenacity and resilience. Please take this moment to pat yourselves on the back, and your colleagues as well. I know it's been quite the ride, and I want to thank you for your continued trust in each other and in the management team - we are all in this together. Thank you to those who worked hard on this case, including Tony, Ramzi, Sharon and the legal team.

“Game on! Fight on,” he added.