Nielsen Holdings’ Gracenote Sues Samba TV for Patent Royalties

Gracenote, a unit of Nielsen Holdings, said Samba TV uses automatic content recognition to trigger additional content, including “second-screen” applications, infringing four patents.

Nielsen wants cash compensation of at least a reasonable royalty and a court order blocking further infringement, according to complaint filed Oct. 17 in federal court in Wilmington, Del.

Automatic content recognition, known as ACR, allows specific advertisements and additional or alternative content to be presented at certain points during playback of a multimedia signal, the complaint says.

With Gracenote technology, “we have ACR setting in 41 million smart TV devices across the globe across nine OEM ...