They actually have almost total control over the specification and thus what technology is included. And the various technologies proposed come with patents. Maybe that’s why H.265 was selected and not AV1 or VP9/VP10.
All this does is push legal redress down to the manufacturer. I guess someone forgot to get an agreement from Constellation Designs.
LG pulled out. They own most of the intellectual properties. Headquarters in South Korea.
South Korea
Brazil
Jamaica
Trinidad and Tobago
- The Plaintiff: Constellation Designs sued LG in 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, alleging LG’s NextGen TVs infringed on patents covering digital communication non-uniform constellation signal processing. [1, 2, 3, 4]
- The Verdict: A jury found LG willfully infringed on the patents, awarding $1.68 million in past damages and setting a $6.75 per-unit royalty. [1]
- The Appeal: On April 28, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit/Second Circuit upheld the core infringement finding and damages, but vacated specific “optimization claims” and sent those portions back to the district court for re-evaluation
No single entity owns the patent for H.265 (also known as HEVC). Instead, the standard is protected by thousands of standard-essential patents owned by over 100 different technology companies, including major firms like Qualcomm, LG, Microsoft, Huawei, and Samsung
- Samsung Electronics: Holds the highest total number of declared ATSC 3.0 patent families.
- LG Electronics: Ranks second in declared patent volume and is a primary licensor in major patent pools.
- Other Key Contributors: Include Sony, Dolby Laboratories, Panasonic, ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute), and ONE Media (a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group)
My opinion: The “Blackbox” patent is invalid.
A system without a method is not eligible for the claim. Too broad and general claims are not eligible. Simply claiming that the result is the patent is not eligible.
Juries are stupid. Lawyers do not understand the technology but persuade juries to push a win. Few judges are capable of understanding the technology.
That’s why everyone and their dog files patent suits in Texas.
I was indirectly involved as an expert witness in patent litigation against several large US banks after being sued by DataTreasury Corporation. It took 12 years for it to be overturned by the Supreme Court.
I also hold six patents myself which are assigned to my former employer. Patents cannot be combined to create “new art”. Patents must reflect an improvement over the prior art.
Constellation (astronomy) was not required to produce prior art references. Half of their claims were dismissed. The other half are silly and unrelated to terrestrial broadcasting.
Did Avanci rush out to negotiate patent rights from Constellation?
LG is a multinational multi billion dollar corporation. Constellation is a patent-troll looking for a payday.
Scripps should sue everyone associated for violating the right to broadcast and receive Nextgen signals.
The Television was never patented because it was a combination of many hundreds of prior patents and ideas from many sources.
IMHO, the current US patent system is completely broken. Thousands of patents that are ludicrous, while potentially valid patents are thrown out because companies didn’t have enough funds to fight. Patents have become precious commodities (and weapons) to be collected by the already wealthy. So, instead of protecting invention, they are used as leverage by “tech cartels”. I say we need a patent depreciation system based on time and corporate valuation, that is, when IBM (one of the biggest in the cartel), consumes a patent (I use “consume” for a reason, IYKYK), the clock of validity goes way way down. The idea of a patent is to allow invention to come to market as the inventor sees fit. It was designed to keep big companies that could produce quickly from stealing your ideas and burying you. But today, that’s not how it’s done. So, I say when the holder of a hundred thousand patents consumes one, the lifetime rapidly becomes worthless, just to damage the cartel and make patent consumption less attractive. You’re an inventor? My guess is that your net worth is far less than IBM? So, the length of time you get is maxed out. We just need to “poison” the abuse of patents by the cartels.
It could be better.
The larger question is;
Would current Gen4 owners be willing to pay an out-of-pocket “fee” to Tablo to enable ATSC 3 Nextgen? Maybe $10? Or $20? Per device depending upon the number of tuners.
The “fee” would obviously be forwarded to Avanci to cover all those patent hogs.
The problem isn’t ATSC 3.0, the problem is drm, which has little to do with the actual “tech”. So, IMHO, the gen 4 will likely never be able to support it, unless we do away with drm altogether (which seems to be that “hill” the broadcaster’s are willing to die on). But, you may say, “Scripps is a broadcaster.” Unknown. I think like all the rest their own “evil” tripped themselves up.
I disagree. DRM is something else entirely. It is not going to survive.
Let’s focus on Nextgen without DRM. Many stations are broadcasting without it. If they don’t want viewers lock it down. Everybody has to choose. Let the market decide.
Posturing aside, who wants Nextgen capabilities?
The world doesn’t revolve around U.S. patents. Your idea/patent has be become a patent around the world.
U.S. patents are not valid in foreign countries . Patents are strictly territorial rights, meaning a patent granted by the USPTO only provides legal protection and enforcement capabilities within the United States and its territories. [1, 2, 3]
International Protection Options
- No Global Patent: There is no single “worldwide patent” that covers every country automatically. [1, 2]
- Paris Convention: Allows you to use your U.S. filing date as a priority date to file applications in other member countries within 12 months. [1, 2]
- Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT): Streamlines filing a single international application to buy time (up to 30 months) before entering individual national or regional patent phases.
U.S. patents expire 20 years from the filing date for utility and plant patents, or 15 years from the issue date for design patents
OMG!
They sell Tablo Gen4 globally. Woohoo!
Never said this. I stand behind everything I said, I’ve lived it, seen it, and… I’m a former IBMer so I know what they do and how they do it. It’s not pretty. I expressly said US Patent system.
You probably only have 30-60 days before the FCC final response to the NAB sunset proposal.
Irrelevant. I don’t care about the FCC decision.
I can watch Nextgen broadcasts today but my device vendor needs to turn it on.
ATSC 3.0 video is one thing, but it doesn’t use typical codec on the audio side. While, it still might be possible, there’s a lot of pieces which might make this completely impractical even if we ignore the drm mess. We’ll see.
Edit: Seeing your other post, just saying there can be a big difference between a TV and a network/app streaming device.
Ironically it was IBM that failed to file patents regarding the DataTreasury Corporation litigation.
Backstory: IBM and Philips Petroleum performed a proof-of-concept in 1968 at Bartlesville, OK. Image capturing charge card receipts.
Fast forward to Check21 and IBM CPCS/HPTS High Performance Transaction System with Image Capture.
Late 1990s a guy working in a New Jersey pizzeria comes up with the idea to Image Capture checks that were accepted for pizza.
But the patent is generic distributed process to centralized control. No system and no method. Any computer system falls into the description of the patent.
Patent troll buys the patent and sues every tech vendor (except IBM) and bank using Image Capture for check processing. Hundreds of millions of dollars are rewarded.
Years later IBM files patents to help all it’s customers that were sued.
Refunds! Cha-ching!
You do realize that all those OTA stations can only function if they follow FCC rules and the FCC issues them a license - even your beloved ATSC 3.0 lighthouses.
Ok. So they are on air today. FCC likes them.
Only 4 are lighthouse the other four are LPTV.