Another day, another lawsuit. StreetSpace, a company headquartered in Malaysia, is suing several companies, including Apple, for infringing a patent related to location-based ads such as Apple’s iAds, reports “AppleInsider” (http://www.appleinsider.com).
StreetSpace makes a remote Internet terminal known as the Web Station. The lawsuit — filed last week in a U.S. District Court in the Southern District of California — alleges that iAds is in violation of StreetSpace patent 6,847,969 because it delivers personalized advertisements based on a user’s location, profile and usage history. The delivery of ads on the iPhone, iPod touch and (eventually) the iPad is infringing on the ‘969 patent owned by StreetSpace, the company claims.
The StreetSpace patent — published in 2005 — is for: “A method and system for providing, personalized and integrated online services for communications and commercial transactions both in private and public venues. The invention provides personalized information that is conveniently accessible through a network of public access stations (or terminals) which are enabled by a personal system access card (e.g., smart card). The invention also provides advertisers the opportunity to directly engage action; and potential user-consumers with selected advertising or marketing content based on each user’s profile and usage history.”
iAds combine the emotion of TV advertising with the interactivity of Internet advertising, according to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Apple has iAd commitments for 2010 totaling over US$60 million, which represents almost 50 percent of the total forecasted US mobile ad spending for the second half of 2010, says Jobs.
He adds that iAd, which is built into iOS 4, allows users to stay within their app while engaging with the ad, even while watching a video, playing a game or using in-ad purchase to download an app or buy iTunes content.
Developers who join the iAd Network can incorporate a variety of advertising formats into their apps. Apple will sell and serve the ads, and developers will receive 60% of the iAd Network revenue, which is paid via iTunes Connect. iAds require iOS 4.