Palm Harbor Residents Co-Inventors of Nielsen Media Patent

Have you ever dreamed of inventing something?

Two Palm Harbor residents can now call themselves inventors, they were on a team of six people who developed a patent for Nielsen.

No doubt, Min Zhang and Regina Dykstra most likely did not create this patent by tinkering with stuff in their garages. They were probably paid a big chunk of change to develop the newly-patented system for Nielsen which detects on screen media sources. 

Nielsen, is a global research company that tracks consumer activity and opinion. The company is known for its Nielsen TV ratings, it also tracks Internet usage, conducts surveys and much more. Nielsen's Florida Headquarters is located in Oldsmar.

On Sept. 13, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued the patent "Methods and Apparatus for Detecting On-Screen Media Sources". The abstract from the U.S. Patent and Trademark website describes the invention like this- 

"Methods and apparatus for detecting on-screen media sources are disclosed. An example method includes monitoring a region of interest of a video signal for a first image, comparing the first image to a stored image, and confirming the media device change when the stored image differs from the first image and is associated with a secondary criterion."

David Howell Wright of Safety Harbor, Scott Cooper of Tarpon Springs, Arun Ramaswamy of Tampa and Daniel Nelson of Tampa are listed as co-inventors. The Nielsen Company LLC in Schaumburg, IL is listed as the Assignee. The patent application was filed on October 24, 2007.

Read the patent document 

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