In August 2015, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) announced a groundbreaking program to provide patent insurance to its members.
The insurance program will help advertisers manage the risk of claims from so-called Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs), also known as "patent trolls." PAEs are firms whose sole business function is to threaten or assert claims for patent infringement against targeted companies. PAEs have roiled the advertising industry by claiming ownership of common advertising practices, including QR codes, website store locators, the placement of facial images on animated body images, the placement of static ads in video streams, and the use of URLs in text messages to link viewers to web content.
Marketers and agencies have paid hefty fees to PAEs - fees that come right out of the bottom line. Until now, neither standard advertising liability policies, nor standalone policies for patent infringement, have met the specific needs of advertisers or agencies in this space, and so insurance coverage has not provided a sufficient method for planning for these risks.
ANA's insurance program attempts to address precisely this issue by providing members with focused patent infringement defense insurance protection for marketing and advertising activities. As noted in the ANA press release announcing the program, "[t]he insurance will permit the insured party to challenge the validity of the patent, or otherwise defend against the assertion, with greatly reduced out-of-pocket expenses."
For more information about the program, visit the ANA's website.
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