HD Radio finds itself under attack in the courts from an unlikely agitator: the patent troll.
What is a patent troll? In a nutshell, they are scumbag bottom-feeders in the land of intellectual property law. Patent troll companies have no real business; they buy up existing patents and then launch campaigns of lawsuits against others that are using "their" technology, claiming that the defendants have violated "their" intellectual property rights.
The idea is to intimidate defendants into making quick settlements, avoiding a potentially costly lawsuit. Even though their claims often have no legal merit—or the patent itself is so vague as to be difficult to define—companies targeted by patent trolls will often settle just to get the nuisance out of their hair. While this might be tactically acceptable, it sets a terrible strategic legal precedent, as it gives a patent troll more courage to continue and expand their campaigns.
Legal scholars have estimated that patent trolls raked in some $29 billion from their nefarious activities in 2011. That same year, WBEZ’s This American Life produced an excellent episode that breaks down patent trolls and their modus operandi. The top five patent trolls in the country have collectively sued several thousand companies large and small over the last five years.
In the case of HD Radio, earlier this month a Delaware-based patent troll named Wyncomm, LLC, representing its "subsidiary," Delaware Radio Technologies (for all intents and purposes, both are shells established for the purposes of patent-trolling), sued several broadcasters using HD Radio. The primary patent at issue was initially awarded to AT&T in 1996 and covers "side channel communications in simultaneous voice and data transmission." The patent itself vaguely refers to telephony and wireless data services. Continue reading “HD Radio Gets Trolled”
Month: November 2013
Radio's Digital Dilemma On the Road
Been a busy month so far: I started out in San Francisco at the Union for Democratic Communications annual conference, where I got to give a preview of my new book and its gory details. It was well-received, especially among policy scholars who hunger for some good old-fashioned muckraking.
Then I was in Australia last week for the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia’s annual conference. I was the Saturday keynote, and compared to Australia’s digital transition, the U.S. looks positively retarded. The talk itself was recorded, but no word on when it will be online. Continue reading “Radio's Digital Dilemma On the Road”
AM Revitalization Initiative Unleashed: All Digital Transition On the Table
And sooner than expected: the FCC will soon open a comment window for 
a plethora of proposals to assist beleaguered broadcasters. Paul Riismandel at Radio Survivor has a decent breakdown of the agency’s primary suggestions, and also notes that there’s "nothing on the all-digital question." If only this were true.
Just because the all-digital idea is not sharply delineated in the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking doesn’t mean the agency’s not interested in it. Policy studies necessitate close reading. For example, the agency notes its permissiveness with all-digital AM-HD experimentation as one of several "discrete changes" it’s made over the years "designed to further enhance the AM service" (p. 5). Continue reading “AM Revitalization Initiative Unleashed: All Digital Transition On the Table”