Does this really surprise anyone?

… As Cuban wrote today, however, he faces another hurdle — namely, that he’s not the first person to have this idea, and those before him aim to profit off a playoff plan one way or another. Here’s part of an e-mail Cuban received from someone reportedly represented by a major law firm:

My advise is, don’t waste your money. There are three perfected alternatives to the BCS.  I own one, a guy with CBS owns another and a guy in Arizona owns the third.  By that, I don’t mean the screw-ball ideas you see on the internet, but actual branded properties.

[…]

You should also consider that the playoffs are already owned by someone, as in, the patent for resolving the FBS championship by way of a playoff was issued long ago. It’s called a method patent, so be careful not to infringe it.

I was hoping it turned out that Jim Delany was the patent holder, but no such luck.