The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a challenge Tuesday to a patent from Clear Channel Communications. EFF alleges the patent -- for a system and method of creating digital recordings of live performances -- locks musical acts into using Clear Channel technology and blocks innovations by others.

According to EFF, Clear Channel claims that its patent creates a monopoly on all-in-one technologies that produce post-concert live recordings on digital media and has threatened to sue anyone who makes such recordings with a different system. EFF says this has forced bands like the Pixies into using Clear Channel's proprietary technology, and it hurts investment and innovation in new systems developed by other companies.

"Clear Channel shouldn't be able to intimidate artists with bogus intellectual property," said EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz. "We hope the Patent Office will take a hard look at Clear Channel's patent and agree that it should be revoked."

The request for reexamination filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office shows that a company named Telex had in fact developed similar technology more than a year before Clear Channel filed its patent request. EFF, in conjunction with top patent attorney Theodore C. McCullough of the Lemaire Patent Law Firm and with the help of students at the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic at American University's Washington College of Law, wants the patent office to revoke the patent based on this and other extensive evidence.

"The patent system serves an important public purpose in our economy," said Schultz. "Keeping illegitimate patents out of that system helps up-and-coming artists and entrepreneurs succeed for all of us."

McCullough believes the patent challenge is on firm ground and points to larger problems in the patent system that Clear Channel may be taking advantage of:

"This case underscores the problem of patent quality endemic to the present U.S. patent system. This patent was issued on what is called a first action allowance, which means that the examiner issued no rejection of the application as filed. Typically, a patent examiner will issue two or more rejections based upon prior art before allowing a patent application to issue as a patent. Here two law students, who did not have technical degrees, spent approximately 2-4 hour researching the technology on the Internet, and found some art that I and EFF believe invalidates this patent. Is there a problem with patent quality in the present U.S. patent system? You tell me. Absent, our efforts Clear Channel via Instant Live, LLC would be seeking royalties from anyone trying to make CD/DVD's of their own concerts."

The Clear Channel patent challenge is part of EFF's Patent Busting Project, which the group says is aimed at combating the chilling effects bad patents have on public and consumer interests.