The company that holds the patents in the year-and-a-half old radio automation patent infringement suit against a handful of large radio broadcast groups says the defendants are stalling for time.
DigiMedia Holdings Group LLC, in court filings in earlier this month, asked the presiding federal judge to lift a stay in the infringement case and accused defendants CBS Radio, Cox, Entercom, Cumulus, Beasley Broadcasting and Greater Media of the delay strategy.
“The litigation and DigiMedia’s licensing program have been derailed through a combination of multiple reexamination requests, litigation stay, and a licensing blockade coordinated among the defendants, state and national broadcaster associations and automation vendors,” the company said in court documents.
Broadcast Electronics, a radio automation supplier and not a defendant in the case, filed a second ex-parte reexamination request with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in May. A USPTO examiner last year reexamined the two patents at the center of the pending dispute striking some claims while upholding others.
DigiMedia concludes in its most recent court filing, “If it was not clear before, the follow-up reexamination request filed by Broadcast Electronics makes clear the strategy of both the named defendants in this case, and the industry of which they are part, is to try to wait out the asserted patents until their expiration in less than two years.”
The company claims “no depositions have been taken and no discovery provided by the defendants” on their widespread infringement.
“After more than a year, it is time to move this case forward,” DigiMedia told the judge.
DigiMedia and its associated company, Mission Abstract Data, have sent packages to a large number of radio broadcasters asking them to sign licensing agreements to use the company’s technology.
Related:
Broadcast Electronics Active in Pending Patent Suit
MAD Pushes Patent Judge to Lift Stay
