It’s uncommon {that a} patent infringement lawsuit goes to a jury trial. Most are both dismissed, dominated on by a decide or settled out of court docket.
That’s why it’s so stunning that, late final week, a federal jury in Delaware present in favor of HyphaMetrics, a measurement startup Nielsen was suing for allegedly infringing on two of its patents.
A Nielsen spokesperson instructed AdExchanger that the corporate is already contemplating an enchantment and likewise asserted that the trial proceedings reveal important details about Hypha’s enterprise.
In line with Nielsen’s assertion, it initially filed go well with “as a result of the product that HyphaMetrics marketed, promised and mentioned it bought is one thing we believed infringed Nielsen’s patents.”
However “because the trial advanced,” the spokesperson mentioned, “we had been stunned to study that HyphaMetrics has no precise product, no information on the market and no plans to make use of AI-enabled content material recognition expertise now or sooner or later. We think about that the shoppers who signed up for the product that HyphaMetrics marketed might be and stunned to study this as effectively.”
HyphaMetrics clearly pushed again towards these claims.
“If their assertion is trustworthy,” HyphaMetrics CEO and Co-Founder Joanna Drews instructed AdExchanger in response, “why didn’t Nielsen drop the lawsuit? Why contemplate interesting when you don’t consider we now have a product?”
Movement for abstract
However let’s take a step again.
HyphaMetrics, which launched in late 2020 with $2 million in seed funding, is making an attempt to construct an viewers panel of 5,000 households utilizing information collected by a router-like gadget that panelists should set up themselves. Referred to as the coreMeter, the field passively tracks person-level media utilization throughout gadgets in actual time utilizing inputs from HDMI feeds, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
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Nielsen introduced its first patent-related authorized motion towards HyphaMetrics roughly a 12 months later, and only some months after Nielsen misplaced its MRC accreditation for nationwide TV rankings in September 2021. (Nielsen regained that MRC seal in 2023.)
That lawsuit, which was filed in November 2021, alleged that HyphaMetrics had infringed on Nielsen’s patent for expertise that may detect whether or not a TV-watching gadget is on or off and activate the in-home meter together with it. Nielsen voluntarily withdrew this case in June 2024, clarifying on the time that its choice was primarily based on HyphaMetrics agreeing to not use applied sciences that infringe on Nielsen patents.
This most up-to-date case – the one present in Hypha’s favor final week – was consolidated from two fits that had been filed by Nielsen in February and Might 2023. The primary revolved round a patent for expertise that makes use of neural networks to determine on-screen content material and the second needed to do with a system that makes use of MAC addresses to determine which family members are watching on which gadgets.
Beforehand, HyphaMetrics filed motions for abstract judgment (which asks the court docket to decide with out holding a trial) on the grounds that Nielsen’s patents solely cowl summary concepts and due to this fact weren’t eligible for cover within the first place. Nevertheless, Decide Gregory B. Williams rejected these arguments and moved the case to a jury trial, which began on July 28.
Throughout the three-day-long trial, HyphaMetrics argued in court docket that in sure proof-of-concept intervals, it had experimented with methods that had been much like – and in some circumstances primarily based on the identical – open-source fashions as a few of the applied sciences outlined in Nielsen’s patents.
Nevertheless, the corporate mentioned, this was carried out previous to when these patents had been truly filed, and HyphaMetrics has since moved on to different methodologies.
The decision got here shortly. On August 1, a jury discovered Nielsen had not offered sufficient proof to show that HyphaMetrics had infringed on its patents, placing an finish to the flurry of lawsuits – for now.
Movement to proceed
It’s no shocker that Hypha was happy with the consequence. In a press assertion shared with AdExchanger, Drew referred to as the choice “a monumental win for shoppers and the whole media ecosystem.”
”The complete HyphaMetrics group is happy to maneuver previous this meritless lawsuit,” Drew mentioned.
To that finish, the startup just lately signed a multiyear partnership with TV foreign money Comscore and plans to scale its panel from its present rely of fifty households to its acknowledged purpose of 5,000 by the tip of Q1 subsequent 12 months.
And if Nielsen decides to enchantment, Hypha should defend itself but once more.
However Nielsen nonetheless has loads of different pending patent litigation of its personal making to kind by.
Since 2021, Nielsen has filed a minimum of 11 patent lawsuits towards firms within the measurement area, together with HyphaMetrics, TVision, TVSquared (which was purchased by Innovid in 2022), audio recognition service ACRCloud and media foreign money supplier VideoAmp. Most are nonetheless energetic, though a couple of towards TVision had been voluntarily dismissed in 2023 and 2024.
And in April, the corporate even filed a brand new lawsuit alleging that certainly one of VideoAmp’s out-of-home measurement merchandise infringed on its patents – and it did so simply days after a separate go well with it had introduced towards VideoAmp (which was filed across the similar time because the HyphaMetrics case in 2023) was dismissed by a decide.
Whether or not Nielsen will take the same route with HyphaMetrics or select as an alternative to file an enchantment, solely time – and United States District Courtroom for the District of Delaware – will inform.
