A pretrial conference has been scheduled in the lawsuit filed by 24/7 Real Media Inc. against competitor Advertising.com over alleged patent infringement.
The meeting, to be held May 17, will set the calendar for the proceedings, said Mark Moran, general counsel for 24/7.
The lawsuit was the second to be filed by 24/7 claiming competitors were infringing upon its patented ad serving technology.
Both suits were filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The first, filed Feb. 6, claimed that ValueClick Inc. and Mediaplex Inc. used, offered for sale and sold systems and methods for providing targeted advertising information over the Internet which are covered by 24/7’s patent. The suit against Advertising.com, filed Feb. 11, claims similar infringements on the same patent, according to court documents.
The cases are in the early stages. No date has yet been set for the ValueClick case. ValueClick brought a separate action on or about Feb. 21 to bring the case to the Northern District of California court, Moran said. ValueClick is headquartered in Westlake Village, CA.
Because of the similarities in the cases, 24/7 has requested that both cases be assigned to the same judge. New York-based 24/7 is seeking a permanent injunction and monetary damages.
Officials at ValueClick and Advertising.com could not be reached for comment.
24/7 filed for the patent called “On-Line Interactive System and Method for Providing Content and Advertising Information to a Targeted Set of Viewers” in July 1995, Moran said. It was issued in February 2000.
Mediaplex is a wholly owned subsidiary of ValueClick. Both firms provide Internet advertising related services to advertisers and Web publishers. Advertising.com, an Internet advertising company, is based in Baltimore, MD.
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