And now they have money and precedent to go after Samsung, Sony, etc., for their TVs.
FCC Announces ATSC 1.0 Shut Down - How It Impacts Free Antenna TV
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Again, they are a legitimate company based in Maryland. The holders developed this technology in 2007 while at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They are well within their rights to defend their patent and are simply doing what is afforded them by patent law.
The rights a patent conveys to an individual or company is simply that you are given the right to keep others from building, implementing and selling it without your consent. As such it is perfectly legal to develop a technology and require others to 'obtain the right' to implement it without implementing it yourself. There is no requirement to utilize it yourself, only a requirement that the patent office itself can request proof of a functioning model, which must be provided upon request.
From the United States Patent and Trademark Office website:
What is a patent?
A U.S. patent gives you, the inventor, the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” an invention or “importing” it into the U.S. A plant patent gives you additional rights on the “parts” of plants (e.g., a plant patent on an apple variety would include rights on the apples from the plant variety). What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention, but the right to stop others from doing so. If someone infringes on your patent, you may initiate legal action. U.S. patents are effective only within the U.S. and its territories and possessions.
What can be patented?
Legally, a utility patent may cover “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” A design patent may cover “any new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture,” and a plant patent may cover a “distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber-propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state,” invented or discovered and asexually reproduced.
So, for a patent to be issued, your invention must meet four conditions:
Able to be used (the invention must work and cannot just be a theory)
A clear description of how to make and use the invention
New, or “novel” (something not done before)
“Not obvious,” as related to a change to something already invented
Patent law defines the limits of what can be patented. For example, the laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas cannot be patented, nor can only an idea or suggestion.
Nature of rights
The patent grant confers “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States.” The term of a utility or plant patent generally lasts 20 years from the date the application was filed in the United States or, if the application specifically refers to an earlier application filed under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121 or 365(c), from the earliest date of filing and subject to payment of maintenance fees.
To carefully distinguish the exact nature of the patent right conferred, the key phrase above is “right to exclude.” The patent does not grant you the right to make, use, offer for sale, or sell or import the invention, but only the right to exclude others from doing so. Given that a patent only gives the right to exclude, the patent holder’s ability to practice an invention depends on the rights of others (for example, an earlier inventor may have a patent covering an aspect of the invention) and on applicable laws (including if exercising the rights related to the invention would violate any law).
When a utility patent is granted, a maintenance fee is due 3½, 7½, and 11½ years after the original grant in order to keep the patent in force. After the patent has expired, anyone may make, use, offer for sale, or sell or import the invention without permission, as long as such activities are not covered by other unexpired patents. Patent terms may be extended or adjusted under certain circumstances as provided by law.
Source: United States Patent and Trademark Office website ( Patent essentials and Managing a patent )
If you don't like the law then do something to have it changed or just live with it.
Just stop defending them, you'll never convince me. They won't work with the others that have agreed to charge lower fees for uses of their patents for ATSC 3.0, and that makes them a patent TROLL by every definition.Again, they are a legitimate company based in Maryland. The holders developed this technology in 2007 while at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They are well within their rights to defend their patent and are simply doing what is afforded them by patent law.
The rights a patent conveys to an individual or company is simply that you are given the right to keep others from building, implementing and selling it without your consent. As such it is perfectly legal to develop a technology and require others to 'obtain the right' to implement it without implementing it yourself. There is no requirement to utilize it yourself, only a requirement that the patent office itself can request proof of a functioning model, which must be provided upon request.
From the United States Patent and Trademark Office website:
What is a patent?
A U.S. patent gives you, the inventor, the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” an invention or “importing” it into the U.S. A plant patent gives you additional rights on the “parts” of plants (e.g., a plant patent on an apple variety would include rights on the apples from the plant variety). What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention, but the right to stop others from doing so. If someone infringes on your patent, you may initiate legal action. U.S. patents are effective only within the U.S. and its territories and possessions.
What can be patented?
Legally, a utility patent may cover “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” A design patent may cover “any new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture,” and a plant patent may cover a “distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber-propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state,” invented or discovered and asexually reproduced.
So, for a patent to be issued, your invention must meet four conditions:
Able to be used (the invention must work and cannot just be a theory)
A clear description of how to make and use the invention
New, or “novel” (something not done before)
“Not obvious,” as related to a change to something already invented
Patent law defines the limits of what can be patented. For example, the laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas cannot be patented, nor can only an idea or suggestion.
Nature of rights
The patent grant confers “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States.” The term of a utility or plant patent generally lasts 20 years from the date the application was filed in the United States or, if the application specifically refers to an earlier application filed under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121 or 365(c), from the earliest date of filing and subject to payment of maintenance fees.
To carefully distinguish the exact nature of the patent right conferred, the key phrase above is “right to exclude.” The patent does not grant you the right to make, use, offer for sale, or sell or import the invention, but only the right to exclude others from doing so. Given that a patent only gives the right to exclude, the patent holder’s ability to practice an invention depends on the rights of others (for example, an earlier inventor may have a patent covering an aspect of the invention) and on applicable laws (including if exercising the rights related to the invention would violate any law).
When a utility patent is granted, a maintenance fee is due 3½, 7½, and 11½ years after the original grant in order to keep the patent in force. After the patent has expired, anyone may make, use, offer for sale, or sell or import the invention without permission, as long as such activities are not covered by other unexpired patents. Patent terms may be extended or adjusted under certain circumstances as provided by law.
Source: United States Patent and Trademark Office website ( Patent essentials and Managing a patent )
If you don't like the law then do something to have it changed or just live with it.
I'm not trying to convince you as you have every right to your own opinion. Just setting the record straight as to how this went down. Patent law, per the US Patent Office, supports the legal descision that the tech used in ATSC 3.0 belongs to Constellation Designs. If the ATSC and LG missed that fact it is on them and them alone. Constellation Designs won their lawsuit against LG. LG then had the opportunity to pay for inclusion of the patented tech at a cost of $6.75 per tv and chose not to. I know you don't agree with the decision but let's give all the facts if we are going to talk about the matter. There are many controversial laws but they are still laws and must be followed unless changed.
Doesn’t LG have to pay it for those already sold? And just stop adding to the bill by not including ATSC 3 anymore?
That the pool doesn't include the patent holder isn't the patent holder's problem. ATSC didn't do their due diligence.
It makes one wonder what other IP has managed to avoid getting wet.
Yes. A least two of the stories previously linked here say that the judge awarded Constellation Designs ~$6.75/unit.
I read an article on Friday with a spokesperson for ATSC 3.0 and she said it was up to the licensors (e.g. LG, Samsung, etc.) to perform the patent due diligence, not the ATSC...
It will not be forced. If 1.0 goes, then people will not be watching OTA. Also, it will cost OTA stations $$$ to switch over translators & LPTV's. The TV stations have tried to get people to go back to OTA, but still only a small percentage watch free OTA. Within 5 years probably OTA will be streaming anyway.
Here, we have a Weigel LPTV with all 7 of their channels (METV, METV+, Catchy TV, H&I, Story TV, Start, and Movies.) I have Frndly TV as a back up as they are of the Weigel channels. The only streaming service that does.
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