DCT
1:25-cv-00408
Nielsen Co US LLC v. VideoAmp Inc
I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information
- Parties & Counsel:
- Plaintiff: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC (Delaware)
- Defendant: VideoAmp, Inc. (Delaware)
- Plaintiff’s Counsel: Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP
- Case Identification: 1:25-cv-00408, D. Del., 04/02/2025
- Venue Allegations: Venue is alleged to be proper as Defendant is a Delaware corporation and therefore resides in the District of Delaware.
- Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s audience measurement products and services infringe a patent related to correlating audience demographics with media exposure using mobile device location data.
- Technical Context: The technology operates in the digital audience measurement field, which provides the data "currency" used to value and trade billions of dollars in advertising across television and digital platforms.
- Key Procedural History: The patent-in-suit is part of a patent family that claims priority back to a provisional application filed in April 2013 and a non-provisional application filed in December 2013, indicating a long development and prosecution history for the underlying technology.
Case Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2013-04-24 | Earliest Priority Date ('402 Patent Provisional Filing) |
| 2013-12-18 | Ultimate Parent Application Filing Date |
| 2022-07-01 | Accused OOH Product Development Announced (Approximate) |
| 2024-06-20 | Accused OOH Product Publicly Discussed as Launched |
| 2024-08-13 | '402 Patent Issued |
| 2025-04-02 | Complaint Filed |
II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis
U.S. Patent No. 12,063,402 - Methods and Apparatus to Correlate Census Measurement Data with Panel Data
The Invention Explained
- Problem Addressed: The patent describes a problem in audience measurement where data collected from servers (“census data”) is voluminous but lacks specific demographic information, making it impossible to distinguish media impressions seen by registered panelists from those seen by non-panelists, or to account for content viewed from a local memory cache. This gap is particularly acute for measuring audiences who watch media outside of the home (OOH) (Compl. ¶17; ’402 Patent, col. 3:67-4:5).
- The Patented Solution: The invention is a system that receives a message from a user's mobile device containing its geographic location and an identifier. The system compares this location to a database of known "reference locations" (e.g., a panelist's home, a bar, a restaurant) to confirm the user's presence. It then accesses information about the specific media content being shown at that location and associates that media exposure with the demographic data linked to the user's mobile device identifier, thereby converting anonymous census data into valuable, demographically-linked panel data (’402 Patent, Abstract; col. 5:21-34).
- Technical Importance: The described technology provides a method for capturing and crediting out-of-home media consumption, a historically difficult-to-measure but commercially significant segment of the audience, especially for high-value content like live sports (Compl. ¶¶10, 26).
Key Claims at a Glance
- The complaint asserts independent claims 1 (system), 12 (medium), and 21 (method), along with numerous dependent claims (Compl. ¶59).
- Independent claim 1, a system claim, requires the following core elements:
- Accessing demographic information associated with a mobile phone, where the information is based on a server.
- Receiving a message from that mobile phone containing its geographic location (derived from a positioning system) and an identifier.
- Determining the mobile phone's location is within a "reference area" by comparing its geographic location to a reference location stored in a database.
- Accessing information identifying the media content being presented within that reference area.
- Associating the media identifying information with the demographic information.
III. The Accused Instrumentality
Product Identification
The complaint identifies the accused instrumentalities as VideoAmp's "Infringing Apparatus" and "Infringing Method," which are components of its audience measurement products and services, including its out-of-home (OOH) offering (Compl. ¶39).
Functionality and Market Context
- VideoAmp's OOH product is alleged to provide "passive audience measurement" by combining geolocation data from consumers' mobile devices with data identifying the content playing on televisions in public venues like bars and restaurants (Compl. ¶¶41-42).
- The system allegedly uses third-party data from partners like Motionworks, which sources location data from software development kits (SDKs) embedded in mobile applications, to determine when devices are present in specific, defined locations (Compl. ¶¶47-48, 50).
- The system also allegedly ingests Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) and set-top-box (STB) data to identify the media content being displayed on TVs within those same venues (Compl. ¶51).
- VideoAmp is alleged to combine this location and content data with demographic profiles, which it aggregates from various data licensors and partners like Experian, to provide its measurement services (Compl. ¶¶44, 46, 52). The complaint alleges VideoAmp markets this product as a direct competitor and "alternative currency" to Nielsen's own measurement products (Compl. ¶55).
No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.
IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations
- ’402 Patent Infringement Allegations
| Claim Element (from Independent Claim 1) | Alleged Infringing Functionality | Complaint Citation | Patent Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| accessing demographic information indicative of a characteristic of an audience member associated with a mobile phone... wherein the demographic information is based on a server; | VideoAmp allegedly licenses demographic information from third-party data providers and uses partners like Experian to create "identity graphs" that aggregate demographic information about its audience members (Compl. ¶46). This information is received from licensors and partners (Compl. ¶44). | ¶¶44, 46 | col. 25:36-40 |
| receiving a message sent from the mobile phone associated with the audience member, wherein the message comprises a geographic location of the mobile phone and an identifier associated with the mobile phone... | VideoAmp's system allegedly "matches location signals from consumer mobile devices" and uses digital identifiers (Compl. ¶42). It collects "precise geolocation data" and identifiers such as a device ID or mobile advertising ID (Compl. ¶¶44-45). | ¶¶42, 44-45 | col. 25:40-49 |
| determining that the geographic location of the mobile phone is within the reference area associated with the reference location by comparing the geographic location of the mobile phone to the reference area... | VideoAmp allegedly uses geolocation data to "identify the number of people in those bars and restaurants" (Compl. ¶42). Its partner Motionworks allegedly allows users to define a location or polygon to measure visits to an area (Compl. ¶50). | ¶¶42, 50 | col. 25:50-56 |
| accessing media identifying information associated with media content presented within the reference area... | VideoAmp allegedly receives Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) and set-top-box (STB) data from "televisions at bars and restaurants" to "pull in the television data" for those locations (Compl. ¶51). | ¶51 | col. 25:57-60 |
| associating the media identifying information with the demographic information responsive to determining that the media content was presented within the reference area... | VideoAmp allegedly "combines" the geolocation data (identifying people) with the content data (from TVs) to associate demographics with the specific media content viewed at those locations (Compl. ¶¶42, 52). | ¶¶42, 52 | col. 25:60-64 |
- Identified Points of Contention:
- Scope Questions: A potential issue is whether VideoAmp's system, which allegedly relies on third-party partners like Motionworks to collect location data from mobile apps, constitutes "receiving a message sent from the mobile phone" as required by the claim. The analysis may question if this indirect data flow, from an app SDK to an aggregator and then to VideoAmp, falls within the scope of the claimed system.
- Technical Questions: The complaint alleges VideoAmp "combines" various data streams (Compl. ¶¶42, 52). A key factual question will be what evidence supports the claim that VideoAmp's system performs the specific step of "associating the media identifying information with the demographic information" in direct response to "determining that the media content was presented within the reference area," as the claim requires a causal link between these steps.
V. Key Claim Terms for Construction
The Term: "demographic information... based on a server"
- Context and Importance: This limitation is central because the infringement theory rests on VideoAmp aggregating data from multiple commercial sources (Compl. ¶46). The definition of "based on a server" could determine whether this aggregated data meets the claim element. Practitioners may focus on this term because its construction could either validate or undermine the theory that data from third-party licensors satisfies the claim.
- Intrinsic Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification broadly defines "people data" to include "user identifier(s), demographic data associated with audience member(s), etc." which can be "combined" with media data, suggesting any server-accessible demographic data could qualify ('402 Patent, col. 1:39-45).
- Intrinsic Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The patent also describes panelist-based systems where an entity "enrolls people that consent to being monitored into a panel" and obtains demographics when "the user joins and/or registers for the panel" ('402 Patent, col. 4:13-22). This language may support a narrower construction requiring the data to be sourced from a more structured registration process on a server controlled by the measurement entity, not merely licensed from external aggregators.
The Term: "receiving a message sent from the mobile phone"
- Context and Importance: VideoAmp's alleged use of partners like Motionworks, which collects location data via SDKs in third-party apps, makes the interpretation of this phrase critical (Compl. ¶¶47-48). The dispute may center on whether this indirect data acquisition method constitutes "receiving a message" by the accused system itself.
- Intrinsic Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The patent describes a system where an "AME server" receives a "beacon" from a "client device" ('402 Patent, col. 8:23-28; Fig. 2). A plaintiff could argue that in a modern, distributed system, "receiving" should be interpreted broadly to cover a system architecture where one component (the server) ultimately ingests data that originated from another (the mobile phone), regardless of intermediaries.
- Intrinsic Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The patent’s figures and descriptions illustrate a relatively direct communication path, such as a beacon being sent from a browser on the client device to the AME server ('402 Patent, Fig. 2; col. 9:1-6). A defendant may argue that the alleged data flow—from an app, to an SDK aggregator, to the accused system—is too attenuated to be considered "receiving a message sent from the mobile phone" as taught by the patent's specific embodiments.
VI. Other Allegations
- Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges that VideoAmp infringes by "directing or controlling Motionworks and/or others to do so," suggesting a theory of induced or contributory infringement based on its relationships with data collection partners (Compl. ¶56).
- Willful Infringement: The willfulness allegation is based on alleged knowledge of the '402 patent as of the date of service of the complaint, which is a standard allegation for post-suit willfulness (Compl. ¶62). The complaint does not allege any pre-suit knowledge of the patent.
VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case
- A central issue will be one of system boundaries and divided infringement: Does VideoAmp's distributed architecture, which allegedly relies on third-party partners to collect location and demographic data, constitute a single "computing system" that performs all steps of the asserted claims? The court may need to determine if VideoAmp "directs or controls" its partners in a manner sufficient to attribute their actions to its system, or if the reliance on independent entities breaks the chain of direct infringement.
- The outcome will also likely depend on claim construction: A key question for the court will be whether the term "receiving a message sent from the mobile phone" can be construed to cover the indirect data acquisition path alleged in the complaint, where data flows from a mobile app SDK through a third-party aggregator before reaching the accused system. Similarly, the construction of "demographic information... based on a server" will be critical in determining if data aggregated from various commercial licensors falls within the patent's scope.