Is cross-device ID graph operator Intent IQ planning to sue all of advert tech?
Most likely not. However an uncommon dilemma has programmatic distributors and advert tech platforms anxious a couple of flurry of potential patent infringement fits.
However let’s again up.
Final week, the IAB Tech Lab launched its new OpenRTB requirements, however with a caveat. The brand new requirements embody what’s identified in authorized parlance as an “exclusion discover” alerting the trade that Intent IQ has an IP infringement declare in opposition to the OpenRTB specs. The declare arose throughout discussions concerning the ID bridging code that went by a public remark interval earlier this yr.
This exclusion discover may imply nothing. One IAB Tech Lab director, talking anonymously as a result of its inner discussions are confidential, informed AdExchanger it’s a wierd scenario the place “everybody may simply shrug and transfer ahead.”
However alternatively, there may be now an unspecified IP infringement declare hooked up to the OpenRTB commonplace – and the declare comes from an organization that earns a major quantity of its income from patent litigation by taking a broad interpretation of its IP.
“I maintain the patents for probabilistic cross-device [targeting] as a result of I personally invented it,” Roy Shkedi, CEO of Intent IQ and its guardian firm, AlmondNet Group, informed AdExchanger.
The IP Biz
Intent IQ and AlmondNet Group have filed a litany of lawsuits in opposition to Amazon, AWS, Microsoft’s LinkedIn and Xandr items, Lotame, Roku, Comcast’s FreeWheel, Viant and LiveIntent, to call just a few.
And it’s been a profitable enterprise.
Reza Mirzaie, the corporate’s authorized counsel, informed AdExchanger throughout a name final week that it “will depend on the yr” as as to whether Intent IQ earns extra as an advert tech and information vendor or as a patent litigant. Though that solely extends to the previous three or 4 years, when the corporate started ramping up patent infringement fits.
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In June of this yr, as an illustration, a jury determined in favor of Intent IQ in a patent go well with in opposition to Amazon, which was required to pay $122 million. That go well with focused Amazon operating cross-device campaigns primarily based on client profiles. Though, the damages charged to Amazon had been really properly under the $348 million Intent IQ had pressed for as a result of the decide cited an “situation as to conventionality” with one among its claims, which means it was directed towards an summary thought, not a concrete invention.
However Intent IQ principally doesn’t go for giant infringement damages claims, because it did with Amazon. “We at all times desire to associate and do enterprise first,” stated Fabrice Beer-Gabel, Intent IQ’s VP of technique and partnerships, throughout the identical name final week.
Nonetheless, lots of Intent IQ’s largest licensees are with firms that opted to accumulate a license in the course of the course of comparable lawsuits, akin to Meta, Microsoft, Roku, Samsung and FreeWheel.
The authorized context
Talking with AdExchanger final week, Intent IQ’s management repeatedly referred to its patent portfolio as “foundational” to the internet advertising trade.
These patents are “foundational” in that they assert IP possession over advert tech’s constructing blocks.
For instance, one former dataxu product govt, who was at Roku when Intent IQ sued the streaming platform in 2022, informed AdExchanger that Intent IQ “claimed a broad patent on focused TV promoting primarily based on any on-line information.”
Whereas that will sound like a weird overreach to anybody who understands how advert tech works, jurors and judges sometimes aren’t acquainted with the ins and outs of internet advertising.
As soon as Roku bought dataxu in 2019, it started doing cross-device promoting, thus allegedly infringing on Intent IQ’s IP, stated the previous worker. That case concerned back-and-forth arguments over whether or not a person clicking to register on a Roku system – and thus calling a server for his or her login particulars – counts as guide or automated processing of knowledge.
Roku finally paid the Intent IQ license.
Nonetheless, Roku has since joined a case led by Meta difficult the identical two patents, which they declare shouldn’t be patentable as they’re apparent processes to the trade (establishing “obviousness” is a time period of artwork in patent legislation, which means knowledgeable within the discipline can be anticipated to know the method or know-how). In August, a decide ordered Roku’s case would transfer ahead and be joined with Meta’s petition to undo the patent claims, in accordance with a supply with information of the case.
Intent IQ additionally filed a go well with in opposition to Lotame this yr, focusing on its Panorama ID product. This go well with, which continues to be open, includes patent claims about “offering collected profiles to media properties having specified pursuits,” in addition to for any “technique, laptop system, and saved program for accumulating descriptive profile information together with supply info to be used in focusing on third-party commercials.”
Microsoft now pays for an Intent IQ license, having been sued after finalizing its acquisition of Xandr from AT&T in 2022. Intent IQ had a preexisting case in opposition to LinkedIn, too.
“We grew to become a really engaging goal,” one Microsoft Promoting worker who got here by way of Xandr (and dates again to AppNexus) informed AdExchanger. Microsoft doesn’t care about advert tech nuances and doesn’t wish to take care of patent shenanigans, the supply stated, so the corporate now pays for an Intent IQ license.
The LinkedIn go well with was primarily based on Intent IQ’s IP claims over “computerized programs for added-revenue off-site focused web promoting,” in addition to a “media properties choice technique and system primarily based on anticipated revenue from profile-based advert supply,” amongst others.
The Tech Lab take
“Exclusion notices” aren’t unparalleled for requirements organizations, in accordance with IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur.
Intent IQ’s discover was the primary such occasion for the Tech Lab, although – and it begs a vital query.
Are advert tech distributors uncovered – and will they be involved – about utilizing the OpenRTB specs?
Neither Intent IQ nor the Tech Lab may present a satisfying reply.
“That seems like a query for the IAB Tech Lab,” Shkedi informed AdExchanger when requested whether or not distributors ought to have any qualms about implementing the brand new OpenRTB requirements with out worry of drawing an IP go well with.
For IAB Tech Lab firms shifting ahead with the spec, Katsur stated, the Intent IQ exclusion discover is “a dialog that product house owners and engineers have to have with their counsel.”
That will not assuage folks’s considerations, although, particularly coming from Katsur. He is called a fire-breather and straight-shooter, however he’s clearly taking a guarded, legalistic method to Intent IQ’s claims. Which is to say, he’s taking them severely.
By together with the Intent IQ exclusion discover, the IAB Tech Lab passes obligation to members for potential infringement claims.
And each time a vendor places the brand new specs by a authorized assessment is sort of a roadblock for adoption – particularly when the exclusion discover was filed by an especially litigious plaintiff.
Intent IQ has greater than 80 patents and seems very able to put them to make use of.
“Higher to concentrate on it and make an knowledgeable choice,” Katsur stated, “versus not being conscious of it and doubtlessly ending up in some type of negotiation.”
