Invidi Technologies said it will consider engaging in licensing agreements for two recently issued U.S. patents, which, according to the company, cover key aspects of its system for delivering addressable TV advertising.
As part of Invidi's distribution deals, "we license our intellectual property to our customers and technology partners and are willing to consider license arrangements with other industry players under the right circumstances," Invidi president and CEO David Downey said in a statement.
Invidi declined to comment on whether it plans to pursue litigation to defend the patents.
The New York-based company's customers include DirecTV and Dish Network, which intend to deliver targeted ads to subscribers by delivering different spots to their DVRs. Verizon Communications also is using Invidi's system to deliver ads at a zone level.
On June 1, 2010, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Invidi U.S. Patent No. 7,730,509, titled "Asset Delivery Reporting in a Broadcast Network." The patent covers the delivery of content that is targeted to users of a broadcast network based on signals from customer-premises equipment and selected from a collection of available asset options.
Another patent, No. 7,698,236, granted April 10, 2010, titled "Fuzzy Logic Based Viewer Identification for Targeted Asset Delivery System," covers certain "machine learning functionality" whereby data inputs from a current network user can be used to refine the selection of which targeted advertisement should be delivered to that user.
Invidi also holds Patent No. 7,546,619, granted June 9, 2009, titled "Voting and Headend Insertion Model for Targeting Content in a Broadcast Network," which covers a selection process for the delivery of targeted content based on parameters such as age, gender, income, locale and personal interest.
In addition, the company in 1996 and 1997 was granted Patent Nos. 5,515,098 and 5,661,516 (a continuation of the ‘098 patent) titled "System and Method for Selectively Distributing Commercial Messages over a Communications Network," covering household targeting and addressing advertisements to a subscriber terminal based on household data associated with the terminal.
Invidi's investors include Google, Experian, Motorola and WPP's GroupM.
