Indeed. But it looks like the actual patent [1] was not for "digital television." It was for a particular means to do frame interpolation, error correction, a

Indeed. But it looks like the actual patent [1] was not for "digital television." It was for a particular means to do frame interpolation, error correction, and motion compression. And it was issued in 1996, when presumably those methods were more innovative. It might seem obvious in hindsight, but step back 16 years and ask what methods of motion compression were state of the art. If it turns out that these methods were obvious (or had already been implemented) in 1996 then the patent will be invalidated. But it's not like MIT patented the mere idea of digital TV -- as one might expect of MIT, the patent is a lot more nuanced. [1]http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,485,210.PN.&OS=PN/5,485,210&RS=PN/5,485,210 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...