After debuting on the New York Stock Exchange last week with a huge pop in stock value, mobile ad network Millennial Media is now facing potential legal trouble from another mobile ad player. The company is facing a patent lawsuit by mobile marketing service, Augme Technologies. We’ve embedded the lawsuit below.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Delaware, says that the patents in question are all generally relating to “systems and methods for providing targeted content over the Internet.” From the patent lawsuit: “The ’721, the ’636, and the ’691 Patents are generally directed to the manner in which content provided in a Web page, such as advertisements, music, videos, and the like, is customized based on the end user’s computing environment, connectivity, bandwidth level, geographic location, gender, age, or other targeting criteria such as behavioral marketing data.”
As we’ve written in the past, Augme’s mobile advertising platform, called Ad Life, allows marketers, brands, and agencies to plan, create, test, deploy, and track mobile marketing programs. The foundation for this patented-technology is the ability to reach targeted groups while remaining device-agnostic. Augme also recently acquired mobile marketing and advertising platform Hipcricket for $44.5 million.
Millennial is one of the largest remaining independent mobile ad networks and currently serves ads to 200 million unique users worldwide, including approximately 100 million unique users in the United States alone. More than 30,000 apps are enabled by developers to receive ads delivered by Millennial.
Augme is seeking damages for the patents potentially infringed upon in the form of royalties and interest. The company also sued Velti in March for infringing upon similar targeting patents.
It’s certainly interesting timing on Augme’s part with Millennial’s recent IPO and cash infusion of over $130 million in the offering. We’ve contacted Millennial for comment and will update when we hear back.