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AlmondNet sued the e-commerce giant in 2021 for infringing patents it owned in the targeted ads space.
Amazon has been ordered to pay nearly $122m after a US court found the e-commerce giant guilty of patent violations against AlmondNet, an adtech company based in New York.
A jury in a Texas district court found that Amazon’s advertising platform infringes on two patents held by AlmondNet, which claims to have pioneered targeted advertising technology.
Established in 1998, AlmondNet was founded by tech inventor Roy Shkedi, who is the company’s CEO. The company has developed a suite of “privacy-friendly” targeted ad tools and conducts research and development in adtech and related technologies.
AlmondNet sued Amazon in 2021 for infringing patents it owned in the targeted ads space. It requested monetary compensation for damages stemming from Amazon features such as ad exchange and standalone targeting services. Amazon denied the allegations.
Now, attorneys representing the company Reza Mirzaie and Marc Fenster of Russ August & Kabat called the verdict a “validating win” for Shkedi and the “foundational technology he invented”, according to Reuters. The total award is expected to be closer to $200m with interest.
AlmondNet is currently in legal battles with several other tech giants, including Meta, Samsung and Oracles, over similar patent violation cases.
Earlier this month, Amazon was slammed with a billion-pound lawsuit in what became one of the biggest cases of collective action taken by UK retailers for alleged misuse of their data.
The British Independent Retailers Association filed the lawsuit in London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal on behalf of UK retailers, claiming £1bn in damages for what it describes as illegal misuse of data and manipulation to make a profit through its online marketplace.
Amazon posted strong financial results in its latest quarterly earnings report last month, with net sales up 13pc and operating income from its cloud services nearly doubled. The e-commerce giant recently announced the launch of an Irish store, Amazon.ie, to go live next year.
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