Cablevision Systems Corp. was delivered a patent suit 5/5 in Delaware for allegedly infringing a patent held by Invidi Technologies for targeted advertising technology. This, of course, means delivering different ads to different viewers watching the same show, based on their preferences, number of children, pets, demos, gender, etc. Invidi claims it has developed technology that allows advertisers on cable television (including broadcast networks aired) to target their ads to specific households based on data about the residents from third-party sources. Invidi’s suit says it has multiple patents on this technology.
Cablevision, which has over three million customers in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, uses products made by Visible World to offer targeted advertising. Invidi also has a deal to deliver this technology via DirecTV. Cablevision is getting its third party data from Experian and possibly others, says the suit.
The major patent mentioned, #5,661,516, “System and Method for Selectively Distributing Commercial Messages over a Communications Network,” was issued in 1997.
See the full suit by downloading the PDF at the top right if this page.
RBR-TVBR observation: This is very important, in that most cable companies are moving over to digital set-top boxes for their delivery—the options are much more to the viewer and incentives to get these boxes, rather than just plugging in the cable, are increasing. Within these network-addressed boxes is the ability for targeted ad insertion—the holy grail to advertisers. If your media buy is not wasted on the disinterested, your efficiency and ROI go sky high.
