EFF RASCALS GOING AFTER CLEAR CHANNEL
Those EFF rascals are at it again – this time seeking the reexamination of Clear Channels’ patent No. 6,614,729 covering system and method of creating digital recordings of live performances.
According to the EFF press release:
Clear Channel claims that its patent creates a monopoly on all-in-one technologies that produce post-concert live recordings on digital media and has threatened to sue anyone who makes such recordings with a different system. This has forced bands like the Pixies into using Clear Channel’s proprietary technology, and it hurts investment and innovation in new systems developed by other companies.
“Clear Channel shouldn’t be able to intimidate artists with bogus intellectual property,” said EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz. “We hope the Patent Office will take a hard look at Clear Channel’s patent and agree that it should be revoked.”
The request for reexamination filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office shows that a company named Telex had in fact developed similar technology more than a year before Clear Channel filed its patent request. EFF, in conjunction with Theodore C. McCullough of the Lemaire Patent Law Firm and with the help of students at the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic at American University’s Washington College of Law, wants the patent office to revoke the patent based on this and other extensive evidence.
“The patent system serves an important public purpose in our economy,” said Schultz. “Keeping illegitimate patents out of that system helps up-and-coming artists and entrepreneurs succeed for all of us.”
Schultz’s comments are well taken – incorrectly issued patents are a bane to our system of intellectual property. A comprehensive and well reviewed reexamination is in both the patentee and the public’s best interest.