Back in March Westwood One filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Local Radio Networks, claiming LRN’s Radio Velocity Control computer hardware and software technology infringed on Westwood patents. On Monday, in a 25 page rebuttal, LRN denied every one of Westwood’s claims.
Westwood claimed LRN knew about the alleged infringement since May of 2020 when they were sent a cease and desist letter. However, “LRN hired several former Westwood executives who had knowledge of the patents in the lawsuit and those former employees are using their knowledge of the program to steal affiliates.”
In the filing Monday LRN repeatedly denied all of Westwood One’s allegations and said they are entitled to nothing. LRN has asked the court to deny the complaint in its “entirety and with prejudice, and Westwood should take nothing from its complaint.”
When the lawsuit was originally filed LRN said the “claims are legally and factually baseless and intends to vigorously defend against those claims.”
The company said Westwood just couldn’t handle the competition any longer. “Six-years after LRN’s successful launch in 2015, Westwood One is apparently giving up on trying to fairly compete and instead is trying to now use the courts to do what its programmers, engineers and affiliate sales people could not do.”
LRN is eating WWO’s lunch and that’s what has their panties in a bunch. I can count 8 stations off the top of my head that have dumped WWOs 24 hour format for one of LRN’s. Nobody tries to compete anymore, they just try to sue the competition out of business.