Patent Fights Fuel US DTV’s Slide from World Stage

The “FATT” is fighting back this week in comments filed at the US FCC against the “Coalition United To Terminate Financial Abuses of the Television Transition” (CUT FATT) proposal to address patent overreaching in the US DTV system.

Filings from Valley View, Philips/LG Electronics, Funai, Thomson, ATSC, Harris, Zenith, MPEG LA, Philips/Qualcomm, and Retire Safe merit future comment by the Reply Comment date of May 27 (see here).

But polemics risk overshadowing a broader and more fundamental point that is skirted in the filings:

ISDB presentation to Philippines, 3/09
ISDB presentation to Philippines, 3/09

The US ATSC DTV system, once touted as a model for US global prowess, has fallen behind rivals DVB and ISDB, priced out of the world market and under-featured, and now if some of these filings are to be taken at face value stubbornly saddled with an uncompetitive process based on lack of transparency and protracted litigation.

Indeed, these filings raise a darker picture that ATSC may at least to some become seen as little more than a cash cow royalty milking opportunity for a small number of foreign vendors at the same time that their home countries promote competing standards to gain market shares in burgeoning DTV markets and opportunities around the world in South America, ASEAN, and elsewhere.

In particular, several of these filings paint the picture that the only viable or appropriate forum to consider and address patent licensing issues are litigation forums like the International Trade Commission or federal courts, and anything else would be unprecedented, unworkable, and so forth.

But this has never been the case — patent and licensing issues have always been a major topic of ongoing concern by standards groups, regulators, vendors, and users in DTV.  The rival European DVB for example, has always played a variety of facilitating roles relating to IPR  — for a long and illuminating discussion on this topic by Carter Eltzroth, Legal Director, DVB Project see here.  If anything, the direction in recent years has been to reexamine, and some cases modify and become more proactive, in these facilitating roles, in light of well-known patent pool disputes like MHP.

And the Japanese-Brazilian ISDB system has recently played effective catch-up with DVB and ATSC by offering royalty free components, trade deals, proactive government-to-government involvement and faster time to market with new features (for background, see here).

So it may be helpful in reviewing these filings to consider a simple question — if you were looking to adopt a DTV system today (as many countries are), would these filings persuade you that the US DTV system, and the process and contentions surrounding it, would be worth adopting today?

References

“Good technical specifications are not enough
– DVB needs to be more proactive on IPR issues”

“15 years of the DVB Project”, Presentation at DVB World 2008 by Philip Laven, Vice-Chair, DVB (subsequently elected Chair of DVB)

Other notable features of the IPR policy of DVB are arbitration and fostering of patent pooling. This article provides a commentary on the DVB’s IPR policy and on its application. It also describes the work of the DVB in resolving IPR “gateway” issues when the perceived dominance of technology contributors, notably through control over IPRs, risked, in the view of some members, distorting new digital markets. In two cases DVB has created a licensing mechanism to dispel these concerns. In addition to the quality of its technical work, DVB’s success lies in its novel IPR policy and its ability to achieve consensus to resolve gateway issues.

“IPR Policy of the DVB Project: Commentary on Article 14 of the DVB MoU”, Carter Eltzroth, Legal Director, DVB Project, http://www.dvb.org/membership/ipr_policy/


Comments

One response to “Patent Fights Fuel US DTV’s Slide from World Stage”

  1. goucla Avatar

    RE: “DVB’s success lies in its novel IPR policy and its ability to achieve consensus to resolve gateway issues.”

    LOL!!! DVB has succesfully penetrated the European market because the use of the standard is MANDATED by the European Commission. There was no free market competition to see what worked best for consumers. This level of government intrusion into technology development is not tolerated in a consumer-driven market.