Earlier this month, one of the biggest sellers of TVs announced that it will stop making TVs with the new ATSC 3.0 NextGen TVs OTA tuners included. This comes as earlier this year, LG lost a patient case from a company claiming to hold patents over some of the technology included in ATSC 3.0 Next Gen TV.
ATSC 3.0 Next Gen TV promises to offer even more options for free over-the-air TV. Including someday in the future 4K free over the air.
Right now, there is a lot of uncertainty over patents with the Next Gen ATSC now that LG lost its case with Constellation Designs, LLC, it says it would have to pay an extra 125% in patent fees for every ATSC 3.0 NexGen TV it sells.
“This challenging and uncertain patent landscape has forced LG to make the difficult decision to suspend the inclusion of ATSC 3.0-compatibility in its 2024 television lineup for the United States. This decision was not made lightly, because LG has been a vocal ATSC 3.0 advocate, a strong supporter of local broadcasters, and a leading developer of television products with the latest NEXTGEN TV technologies. Going forward, LG will, of course, continue to monitor the patent landscape and its effect on LG’s own product roadmap and overall industry dynamics. ” LG said in a statement to the FCC.
LG has asked the FCC to look into how it can help address issues over patents related to the ATSC 3.0 Next Gen TV technology. Currently, most patent holders are working to make it easy to license patents for companies wanting to build ATSC 3.0 tuners. A few though according to LG are not working together to make it easy to build TVs with the new tuners.
Because of all of this LG will stop making TVs with ATSC 3.0 Nextgen TV tuners in its 2024 models. It says it will watch what happens and could return to making TVs with the new tuners in the future.
“LG’s decision to suspend support for NEXTGEN TV products in 2024 because of an ongoing patent dispute is unfortunate, but we are hopeful that the matter can be resolved. In the meantime, we continue to project that total NEXTGEN TV sales will cumulatively top 10 million units by year end.” Said Anne Schelle the managing director of the Pearl TV broadcaster group.
Cord Cutters News is reaching out to LG for comment and will update this story when we learn more.