Quu has filed a federal patent infringement lawsuit against Broadcast Electronics.
The complaint, filed Nov. 11 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, alleges that BE’s TREplus products infringe on a Quu patent covering its Content Partnership and AdSync visual message offerings.
When reached Thursday, BE President and CEO Rich Redmond said the manufacturer is aware of the allegations, is reviewing the matter and had no further comment.
Quu President and CEO Steve Newberry told us Thursday that the company has historically coexisted with BE and its traditional product lineup.
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Newberry said. “I’m not litigious by nature. But in this case, it was necessary to protect our own intellectual property.”
In a statement, Quu added that it has invested extensive time and capital developing the technology, which delivers synchronized and visual-only radio content to dashboard screens.
Quu offers software and services that allow stations to publish dynamic visual programming and sales messages on vehicle dashboards. Under its Content Partnership program, advertisers’ visual messages appear on vehicle screens for 30 seconds while songs or other content plays.
Meanwhile, Quu’s AdSync product allows a station to sync visual messages to a specific commercial spot.
Joseph Harb, a co-founder and CTO at Quu, originally filed for the patent in question in 2012 covering a method, system and apparatus for interactive radio advertising. That same year, Quu invested in Jump2Go and obtained the exclusive license to that company’s JumpGate RDS and HD Radio offerings.
Broadcast Electronics is a heritage equipment manufacturer, originally founded in 1959. A new ownership group led by Redmond and The Alzana Group acquired BE earlier this year.
BE released the TREplus platform in 2023, describing the software as a tool for managing visual and text data across analog FM RDS, HD Radio, DAB, streaming, mobile apps and station websites.
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