Patents Assigned to The Nielsen Company
  • Patent number: 11558135
    Abstract: Example apparatus disclosed herein determine that an output media signal from a monitored media device corresponds to at least a first media signal from a first source device in communication with the monitored media device, and a second media signal from a second source device in communication with the monitored media device. Disclosed example apparatus also access motion data reported by one or more of a first accelerometer associated with a first remote control device, a second accelerometer associated with a second remote control device, a third accelerometer associated with a third remote control device, the first remote control device associated with the first source device, the second remote control device associated with the second source device, the third remote control device associated with the monitored media device. Disclosed example apparatus also identify, based on the motion data, a source of the output media signal from the monitored media device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 28, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 17, 2023
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Joze Arh, Igor Sotosek, Bla{hacek over (z)} Rem{hacek over (s)}kar, Marko Panger
  • Patent number: 11558659
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus to detect commercial advertisements associated with media presentations are disclosed. An example method involves receiving a video frame and detecting a change in box-formatting between the video frame and a subsequent video frame. A transition between the video frame and the subsequent video frame is indicated as a commercial advertisement transition based on the detected change in box-formatting.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 13, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 17, 2023
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: David H. Wright, Scott Wilson, Ron Schwerer, Ronan Heffernan
  • Patent number: 11558661
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture to identify media sources are disclosed. Example apparatus disclosed herein include an exclusivity determiner, a unique asset identifier, and a signature matcher. The exclusivity determiner is to determine whether media is exclusive to a provider. The unique asset identifier is to associate a first signature of the media with the provider if the media is exclusive to the provider. The signature matcher is to identify the provider based on a second signature, the second signature matching the first signature, the second signature extracted from media presented at a media presentation location.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 22, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 17, 2023
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Sandeep Tapse, Jason Olmsted, James Petro, Albert T. Borawski, Brian Fuhrer
  • Patent number: 11558663
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a controller to cause a people meter to emit a prompt for input of audience identification information at a first time and determine a first audience count based on the input, an audio detector to determine a second audience count based on signatures generated from audio data captured in the media environment, and a comparator to cause the people meter to not emit the prompt for at least a first time period after the first time when the first audience count is equal to the second audience count.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 17, 2023
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventors: John T. LiVoti, Stanley Wellington Woodruff, Rajakumar Madhanganesh, Khushboo Agarwal
  • Patent number: 11558676
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus to synthesize reference media signatures based on constituent media signatures generated by metered media devices are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a collector to collect first constituent media signatures from a first media device that identify a first portion of media, a collector to collect second constituent media signatures from a second media device that identify a second portion of the media, and a synthesizer to combine the first constituent media signatures from the first media device and the second constituent media signatures from the second media device to form a reference media signature that represents the media, the reference media signature for comparison with third constituent media signatures collected from a third media device to detect consumption of the media at the third media device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 17, 2023
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Albert T. Borawski, Daniel Nelson, Vinay Chauhan
  • Patent number: 11553054
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed to measure media consumption. An apparatus includes a controller to trigger execution of a request to obtain media from an Internet site, and a reference signature generator to identify a set of domain names generated during the execution of the request, and generate a reference signature based on (a) the set of domain names and (b) one or more of a location of the request, a time of the request, or a characteristic of a device used to execute the request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2023
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventors: Kevin Keqiang Deng, Joseph Kerkes
  • Patent number: 11553355
    Abstract: Example methods and apparatus to recognize metered devices connected to proprietary WiFi extenders are disclosed herein. In some examples, a first device comprising at least one memory including a table, and at least one processor to broadcast a first message to a network extender, the first message including a first address associated with a second device and a message identifier, identify, in response to obtaining a second message including the message identifier, a second address embedded on a data link layer of the second message, and store the second address in the table in association with the second device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 18, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2023
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Anton Kljun, Joseph Kerkes, Marko Panger, Marko Usaj
  • Patent number: 11553247
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a thermal image detector to determine a heat blob count based on a frame of thermal image data captured in the media environment, an audience image detector to identify a face of an audience member based on a frame of audience image data captured in the media environment, the frame of audience image data corresponding to a field of view associated with at least one heat blob included in the heat blob count, and a people meter controller to cause a people meter, which is to emit a prompt for audience identification information, not to emit the prompt for at least a first time period after the audience member is identified.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2023
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Stanley Wellington Woodruff, John T. LiVoti
  • Patent number: 11551246
    Abstract: An example includes generating panelist-user data based on reference demographic information and self-reported demographic information, the reference demographic information and the self-reported demographic information corresponding to audience members of an audience member entity panel that are also registered users of a database proprietor, the reference demographic information from a panelist database of an audience measurement entity, and the self-reported demographic information from a user database of the database proprietor; generating a first training model and a second training model, the first training model based on a first portion of the panelist-user data, the second training model based on a second portion of the panelist-user data; selecting the first training model based on outputs of the first and second training models; and generating a third model by making an adjustment to a demographic category of the first training model, the third model to adjust third demographic information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2023
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Albert R. Perez, Josh Gaunt
  • Patent number: 11553226
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture are disclosed to estimate population reach from marginal ratings with missing information. An example apparatus includes a pseudo universe calculator to (i) determine a first pseudo universe estimate for a first audience of media corresponding to a first union of first margins, the first margins corresponding to known audience totals, and (ii) determine a second pseudo universe estimate for a second audience of the media corresponding to a second union of second margins, the determination based on an audience constant, the second margins including a margin corresponding to an unknown audience total. The example apparatus also includes a reach calculator to (i) determine an estimate of the unknown audience total of the second audience based on the second pseudo universe estimate for the second audience, and (ii) determine a reach estimate for the second union based on the first and second pseudo universe estimates.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 16, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2023
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Michael Sheppard, Dipti Shah, Ajete Junuzi, Molly Poppie
  • Patent number: 11553450
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed for locating mobile devices using wireless signals in mixed mode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2023
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Rafael E. Alonso, Joshua B. Hurwitz
  • Patent number: 11546832
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed to redirect internet clients for media monitoring. An example apparatus disclosed herein includes a wireless communication controller to establish a plurality of connections to a WI-FI router, the plurality of connections corresponding to simulated WI-FI clients, and a client interface to identify a connection of a WI-FI client to the apparatus and route network traffic of the WI-FI client to the WI-FI router via the plurality of connections.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 19, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2023
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventors: Marko Panger, Andrej Barbis, Marko Usaj, Joseph Kerkes, Mohd Afwaan Ahmed Quadri
  • Patent number: 11546270
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed to throttle resource access by web crawlers. An example method disclosed herein includes obtaining, at a server, a media request message for media hosted by the server, the media request message requesting access to the media, characterizing a media-requesting source associated with the media request message, and inserting a time delay in a media response message to the media-requesting source based on the characterization.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 8, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2023
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventor: Bradley R. Lawrence, III
  • Patent number: 11546674
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture to extend a time range supported by a watermark are disclosed. Example watermark encoding apparatus disclosed herein determine which one of a plurality of timestamp cycles is to be represented by a timestamp of a watermark, the timestamp including a set of timestamp symbols, a first subset of data symbols and a second subset of data symbols. Disclosed example apparatus also modify the first subset of data symbols of the watermark based on a further timestamp symbol not included in the set of timestamp symbols of the timestamp, but not modify the second subset of data symbols based on the further timestamp symbol, the further timestamp symbol to identify the one of the plurality of timestamp cycles to be represented by the timestamp of the watermark. Disclosed example apparatus further embed the watermark in a piece of media.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 27, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2023
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventors: Alexander Topchy, Vladimir Kuznetsov
  • Patent number: 11546662
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus to monitor media presentations are disclosed. Example methods disclosed herein include presenting information via a display of a media device, the information indicating that monitor software in the media device can be enabled, the monitor software to monitor media presented by the media device, the monitor software to be disabled by default. Disclosed example methods also include detecting a first user input that is to authorize the monitor software in the media device to be enabled, and in response to detection of the first user input: (i) enabling the monitor software in the media device to generate and report at least one of video fingerprints, audio fingerprints, video watermarks or audio watermarks representative of media presented by the media device, and (ii) transmitting, via a network interface, a notification to a remote monitoring entity to indicate that the monitor software in the media device has been enabled.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 25, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2023
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventor: Mark C. Zimmerman
  • Patent number: 11544726
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed to estimate an audience population.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2023
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventors: Michael Sheppard, Edward Murphy, Molly Poppie, Ludo Daemen
  • Patent number: 11546579
    Abstract: Display device ON/OFF detection methods and apparatus are disclosed. Example display activity detectors disclosed herein are to extract regions from respective ones of captured video frames, the regions corresponding to a depiction of a display of a monitored media device Disclosed example display activity detectors are also to compute a distance metric that is to represent an amount a first one of the regions of a first one of the captured video frames differs from a corresponding second one of the regions of a second one of the captured video frames. Disclosed example display activity detectors are further to compare the distance metric to a threshold to determine whether the monitored media device is ON or OFF.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 1, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2023
    Assignee: THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC
    Inventors: Christen V. Nielsen, Dan Nelson
  • Patent number: 11544321
    Abstract: Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed for scalable architectures for reference signature matching and updating. An example method for scalable architectures for reference signature matching and updating includes accessing site signatures to be compared to reference signatures from a first group of media sources. The example method also include determining if a first reference node is an owner of a first one of the site signatures, comparing a neighborhood of site signatures including the first site signature to reference signatures in a first subset of reference signatures when the first reference node is the owner of the first site signature, the first subset of references signatures stored in a first memory partition associated with the first reference node, and not comparing site signature to reference signatures when the first reference node is not the owner of the first one of the site signatures.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 1, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2023
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Raghuram Ranganathan, Anand Jain, Venugopal Srinivasan
  • Patent number: 11537690
    Abstract: Apparatus, systems, methods, and articles of manufacture related to end-point media watermarking are disclosed. An example device includes a media receiver to receive a media signal, a watermark generator to generate a watermark, a trigger to activate the watermark generator to generate the watermark based on an external input, an encoder to encode the media signal with the watermark to synthesize an encoded media signal, a media output to render the encoded media signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 7, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2022
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventors: Arun Ramaswamy, Timothy Scott Cooper, Jeremey M. Davis, Alexander Topchy
  • Patent number: 11540154
    Abstract: Example methods and apparatus to measure wireless networks indoors are disclosed herein. An apparatus includes a memory, and at least one processor to identify information unique to a mobile device communicatively coupled to a server, select a benchmarking test based on the information unique to the mobile device, the benchmarking test including at least one of a first measurement test, a second measurement test or a third measurement test, the first measurement test including a default latency test, the second measurement test including measurement instructions stored on the mobile device, and the third measurement test including measurement instructions to be downloaded to the mobile device communicatively coupled to the server, and cause transmission of instructions to the mobile device, the instructions to perform the selected benchmarking test.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 1, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2022
    Assignee: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
    Inventor: Dominic H. Ngai