Amazon, Salesforce Sued Over Consumer Data-Aggregation Patent

Amazon.com Inc. and Salesforce Inc. allegedly incorporated a Japanese inventor’s patented big-data marketing methods into sales tools that leverage customers’ interests and past purchases to predict their future purchases, according to a pair of lawsuits in Delaware federal court.

Keysoft Inc., a Japanese company founded by Yoshimitsu Kagiwada, said the two American marketing behemoths should’ve licensed US Patent No. 8,271,315, which involves integrating seemingly unrelated customer data to create targeted marketing and advertising, according to separate complaints filed Monday in the US District Court for the District of Delaware.

Keysoft contends each company’s big-data marketing program generates “hundreds of ...