US DoJ wades into Realtek lawsuit that accuses MediaTek of patent abuse

Taiwanese chip firm MediaTek is under scrutiny with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) taking an interest in an antitrust dispute with semiconductor compatriot Realtek. MediaTek, a fabless chip company targeting smartphones, wireless comms, and other applications, is the subject of a lawsuit from Realtek launched last year, …

[martinusher]

Patent Jackpot

I seem to recall seeing material that described this as a patent that somehow escaped the ATSC3.0 patent pool. This isn't the first time this has happened, its actually a patent holder's dream that they find their technology is essential to some widely standardized technology without it being part of the patent pool so they can charge whatever they feel like to anyone who unwittingly uses it. (Remember RAMBUS?) Its a widely reviled practice and remember that one of the major TV manufacturers had literally pulled its products off the market rather than negotiate with these trolls.

(Fortunately TV in all its forms is now effectively obsolete. ATSC3.0 seems to be nothing more than a variation on distributing IPTV over WiFi; there's probably some patents floating around minor aspects of the technology -- there's always bottom feeders claiming to invent the obvious and the USPTO tends to be only too happy to oblige them -- but hopefully these trolls can be left high and dry.)

[jotheberlock]

Re: Patent Jackpot

Can't speak for US TV, but over here IP over your TV/internet provider's multicast network (not wifi, or not necessarily) is the newer thing over Digital Terrestrial Television (an antenna), but uses the same transport mechanism (MPEG transport streams, which are designed for one-way transmission over lossy mediums, which describes both of those)..

It'll get its lunch eaten by on-demand streaming services like Netflix eventually but in the meantime it's more obsolescent than obsolete, especially as Boomers still watch linear TV.

[Anonymous Coward]

Litigation hit men

Paraphrasing a famous movie, the problem of a war between arms dealers is no shortage of ammunition.

Anon, obvious

[Groo The Wanderer]

Patent trolls?

Feed 'em to a wood chipper!

[jotheberlock]

Those are some very old fashioned chips being used to illustrate the story. Not sure DIPs have been much used since about the days of the Motorola 68010.