In its role as court-appointed receiver for digital data and advertising company AudienceScience, Revitalization Partners filed suit against Google and YouTube for infringing on a trio of patents held by the receivership and the former company’s estate.
Revitalization Partners, on behalf of AudienceScience, alleges both Google and YouTube infringe upon the inventions of AudienceScience by selecting and designating which advertising messages are included when a user requests a web page. The intellectual property litigation is believed to the first ever initiated by a state receiver, according to Revitalization Partners, which said it initially discovered the patents after AudienceScience ceased day-to-day operations in 2017.
Revitalization Partners co-founder and principal Al Davis said his firm discovered 32 AudienceScience patents after being appointed by the court to manage the receivership process. Working with Pat Scanlon, director of Revitalization Partners’ digital business practice, the firm began developing a strategy to monetize the value of those proprietary technologies in order to satisfy creditor obligations. The suit against Google and YouTube represents the first of those legal actions.
“As we did our due diligence, we quickly recognized how the patents were being infringed upon by two of the largest and most influential companies in the online world,” Davis said. “Now that we’ve received the necessary approvals from the Washington state receivership court in order to pursue litigation, we are in position to execute and potentially recover a significant amount of value for creditors using these and other patents.”
Revitalization Partners engaged noted Robert Kramer of the Feinberg Day Kramer Alberti Lim Tonkovich & Belloli firm to represent the company in the case against Google and YouTube, along with local counsel the Dacus Firm in Tyler, TX.
