The move follows an appeal by TRA for the judge to reconsider, saying the earlier order contained a number of “erroneous conclusions”. The reversal puts TRA’s claims, accusing Kantar of misappropriating trade secrets and patent infringement – allegations denied by Kantar – back before the court.

MediaPost has more detail on this latest development.

The dispute between TRA and Kantar dates to June 2011, when Kantar filed a complaint as a pre-emptive strike against TRA, whose CEO had threaten to take the company to court over alleged patent infringement.

TRA followed up Kantar’s action several weeks later with a counter-claim, accusing Kantar – whose parent company WPP was an investor in TRA – of taking advantage of information TRA had shared as part of discussions of a “strategic relationship or acquisition” in order to launch a competing research product.

Both Kantar’s RapidView product and TRA’s own Media TRAnalytics tool combine TV viewing information with purchase data with a view to better targeting ad spend.

TRA has since been acquired by Tivo.