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The Federal Communications Commission has launched a comment cycle on a petition asking for reform of the DTV receiver patent license sharing system. The Coalition United to Terminate Financial Abuses of the Television Transition (that’s right: CUT FATT), charges that American digital television makers are getting gouged by unmonitored patent licensing. That means higher DTV prices at the retail level.

“Licensors in the United States operate freely in an un-regulated ‘Wild West’ without supervision or accountability,” the January 2 petition charges. “As a result, American consumers pay to per television for intellectual property rights that cost about elsewhere in the world.”

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