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At issue is a "phased array antenna system" that was patented in September of 2008 by Tom Rauch W8JI, which this lawsuit claims has been wrongly copied by Hi-Z Antennas (run by Lee Strahan K7TJR) and also sold by Array Solutions (run by John Terleski WX0B).
In a five page legal complaint filed last month in a U.S. federal court in Ohio, PDS Electronics - more familiar to contesters as DX Engineering - accuses Hi-Z, Strahan, Array Solutions and Terleski of "infringing, actively inducing others to infringe, and/or contributing to the infringement" of United States Patent No. 7,423,588.
That patent lays out in minute detail the phased array systems that are sold by DX Engineering - one of the drawings in that patent is shown below.
The lawsuit charges that Hi-Z antennas has infringed on the phased array patent by selling the "Hi-Z4", "Hi-Z8W" and "Hi-Z8N" antenna systems, and asks the court to stop those sales and award damages to PDS and DX Engineering.
The lawsuit may already have worked, as those three products can no longer be found on the web site of Array Solutions, which has scrubbed everything related to those products from the WX0B site.
But it is even a bigger change for Hi-Z antennas, as that company's web site was not even operational in early January.
"Website unavailable" was the simple message in the left corner of the page, as web searches could locate only a cached copy of what Hi-Z's home page used to look like.
The lawsuit spurred some discussion on the Top Band reflector in late December, but has otherwise skirted under the ham radio radar for the most part.
"A business which holds patents is able to protect itself from financial harm from competitors if it can demonstrate that a competitor is infringing upon its patent," wrote Dave Heil K8MN.
"An individual is free to make, for his own use, a thing which is patented by a company without fear of being sued by the patent holder," said Heil.
"Anyone who chases DX on the low bands and who wishes to homebrew a product produced by anyone, may do so."
That case accused MFJ of infringing on a patent for a vertical antenna "radial plate" by selling the MFJ-2814.
The radial plate patent was granted to Paul Sergi, identified as the Chief Executive Officer of PDS; in November of 2005, Sergi gave all rights to that patent to PDS.
The lawsuit was dropped soon after it was filed, but it seemed to have had the intended impact, as MFJ no longer offers the MFJ-2814 for sale on its website as it did in the past, as you can see in an old screenshot from the MFJ website below:
This 2009 lawsuit dealt with United States Patent Number 6,927,740, as DX Engineering charged that "Neither PDS nor Sergi has authorized MFJ to make, use, sell, offer for sale, or import into the United States products covered by the ‘740 Patent."
A review of U.S. Federal Court records also showed a similar lawsuit from 2005, when DX Engineering went after a company in Texas named Radial Wave, which was also making a vertical antenna "radial plate" for sale.
That lawsuit was also dropped without a trial, but there is no evidence that could be found with internet searches of any amateur radio products company operating from that same McKinney, Texas address.
