This morning Cambridge, Mass. based Brightcove announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded the company a big patent related to the publishing and distribution (including marketing) of video content. The patent covers everything from the styling of video player related to viewing experiences through rights management, affiliate syndication, advertising policies and even into analytics. It will be interesting to see how the patent approval affects other video businesses, as it appears to extraordinarily broad and all-encompassing (patent lawyers: please weight in in the comments!).
Bob Mason, Brightcove CTO, and Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove Chairman and CEO, are attributed as the inventors behind the patent. The document for request for patent approval was filed on August 12, 2005.
From the abstract of the patent filing itself:
“Among other things, publishers of digital content are enabled each to define, for each of one or more digital content items, a style in which the digital content item is to be presented to a user and a condition under which the user may have the digital content item presented. The digital content items are stored in a content library, the styles and conditions associated with the digital content items are stored in a server. Each of the digital content items is enabled to be presented to users within presentation contexts that are accessible to the users and controlled by presentation context providers. The presentation of the digital content items includes obtaining the digital content items from the server and controlling the presentation to occur under the conditions and in the styles defined by the publishers.”
You can read the full patent filing here, which outlines its claims and provides a much more in depth description.
“Our founding mission for Brightcove was to publish and distribute the world’s professional digital media,” said Jeremy Allaire. “It is incredibly gratifying to be awarded a patent that formally recognizes our innovation and leadership in fulfilling that mission.”
“Since day one, Brightcove has focused on solving hard problems in unique ways that deliver real value to our customers,” said Bob Mason. “This patent is proof of our commitment to relentless innovation, a commitment that we continue to fulfill as we ship new software month after month.”
