Rentrak says it has received U.S. patents for its method for calculating exact commercial ratings and it method for generating ratings when return path data is incomplete.
The research company, which competes with Nielsen, says the patents give it an advantage in measuring the new way television programs are consumed.
"Once again, the U.S. Patent Office has recognized Rentrak's unique inventions that help it measure TV everywhere," Rentrak Vice Chairman and CEO Bill Livek said in a statement.
U.S. Patent 8,887,188 is for a method secures Rentrak's intellectual property rights around "Exact Commercial Ratings." Rentrak provides, to the second, the rating for national commercials, rather than an average of commercials in a pod as Nielsen does, to give advertisers a precise accountability metric, the company said.
U.S. Patent 8,893,165 is for a method and system that compensates for problems with return path TV data storage. In some cases, a return path TV is not able to store all the channel changes before sending them back for processing by Rentrak. This patent detects when this problem happens, which enables Rentrak to fix the problem quickly, the company said.
