Simmons Market Research Bureau Monday said the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted a patent for part of its Television BehaviorGraphics, a method of data integration that combines
Simmons' national consumer survey with Nielsen Media Research's TV ratings data. The patent was awarded to Bill Engel, co-CEO and Dr. Max Kilger, chief behavioral scientist at Simmons, for their
method of integrating information from disparate databases for purposes of predicting consumer behavior.