Patent Issues
Bozo,
Looks Like you did a lot of reaseach there. Good hard work.
Let me start at the begining.
csva.com
(snip)
"The initial research on the DMT technology was accomplished by Professor John M.Cioffi at Stanford University. Beginning in 1987, Dr. Cioffi and his graduate students evolved the concept of utilizing DMT technology to transmit millions of bits per second of digital codes and multimedia signals over ordinary telephone lines. The conclusion of this research resulted in three patents which are owned by Stanford
University. "
Why will Motorola, TI, Etc. pay royalities if the patents are not enforceable? Big companies, think they would find a way out if there were one..
Why have we not heard any more from Aware who at one time said the did not have to pay??? And now get their chips from ADI...
Why have we not heard anymore from Telebit?
Below are just a few of the points from my archive, if you want more or don't believe the comments from an AOLer who talked with Amati on the Patent issue (at the end) call Amati and ask, I'm sure they will take the time to explain, As I won't attempt to speak for Amati, though I will quote what's in the Public Domain out there.
As always, IMO there is more to this quiet company than meets the eye, contrary to many who post here. When they do start talking I feel more than a few will be surprised. Although I know a few who won't be.
I tried to add information from various sources which will interest many readers. I left PR in tact for reasons of the disclaimers in case newbees may be lurking.
JW@KSC
PS check out the boldface, I had forgotten about that tidbit....
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 21, 1996--Amati
Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: AMTX), released the following
information to attempt to clear some published erroneous reports.
Amati Communications does not license any technology from the
former AT&T Paradyne. In fact, Amati holds the patent rights for the
standard technology basis of the ADSL service known as Discrete
Multi-Tone (DMT). Companies that are developing standard ADSL
products license their technology from Amati. Motorola and Northern
Telecom are among the companies that have licensed the Amati
technology.
The value of ADSL is based on its future potential, but certain
facts are true: there are no ADSL services existing today; the
potential for high speed data access using ADSL is high but depends
on telco and service provider implementation of those services, Amati
is the developer of the T1.413 standard for ADSL which is the
Discrete Multi-Tone technology, DMT; AT&T Paradyne only offers a
non-standard, proprietary version of technology and has yet to be
able to deliver any standard compliant products or technology; and
Westell, also mentioned in the reports, has announced availability of
both Paradyne non-standard and DMT-standard products for future
installations.
DMT is a unique technology that enhances ADSL by providing the
ability to move signals at up to 8 Mbps or greater over existing
telephone lines.
DMT was chosen as the ADSL standard by ANSI and ETSI three years
ago, following head-to-head competition with an alternative approach
called CAP in lab tests by Bellcore. DMT offers several key
advantages over the proprietary solutions: higher performance (it can
carry more data at longer lengths), higher immunity to noise on the
copper loop (permitting more robust service offering with less manual
intervention), and rate adaptation (the data rate delivered to any
given customer is automatically adapted to the distance and line
quality ensuring optimum performance at all times).
Currently, more than a dozen different telephone company field
trials are based on the Amati products designed with the DMT
technology. The products include: the Overture 4 ADSL/DMT modem
capable of up to 4 Mbps downstream and 160 Kbps upstream and the
Overture 8 ADSL/DMT Modem capable of the fastest ADSL service
available today at 8 Mbps downstream and 640 Kbps upstream.
Amati Communications Corporation
Amati is a leading developer of advanced transmission equipment
utilizing DMT technology for the ADSL, Very High-Speed Digital
Subscriber Line (VDSL) and cable modem markets. Amati is also a
provider of network connectivity systems for the internetworking and
OEM marketplaces. The company's connectivity products include local
area network gateways, client-based workstation software and network
data communications interfaces.
-0-
Note to Editors: Statements made in this press release which are
not historical, including statements regarding product demonstration,
product capabilities and markets, are forward looking statements and
as such are subject to a number of risks. Please see the Company's
prospectus/proxy statement dated Oct. 16, 1995 and other reports
filed pursuant to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 for additional
disclosure regarding such risk factors.
________________________________________
AWRE VIEW ON ALCATEL SELECTION BY GANG OF FOUR AND ON ADSL MARKET
UBS SECURITIES EQUITY RESEARCH October 09,1996
Nikos Theodosopoulos (212) 821-6951 Scott Heritage (212) 821-6828
VIEW ON ALCATEL SELECTION BY GANG OF FOUR AND ON ADSL MARKET
* Alcatel was selected by the "Gang of Four" RBOCs to provide ADSL
system.
* Some of the factors that we believe led the RBOCs to this selection
are: price, time to market of Alcatel's DMT product, and Alcatel's ability to deliver a complete end-to-end ATM ADSL solution.
* Investment in ADSL area is difficult at current time due to a lack of leadership in the market and visibility into ADSL companies operating models; A way to play ADSL is to invest in backbone ATM switch manufacturers.
Last Friday, the "Gang of Four" RBOCs, Ameritech, PacTel, SBC and
BellSouth, announced that they have selected Alcatel to provide equipment for the rollout of high speed ADSL services to primarily the home. The contracts surrounding this selection have not yet been finalized. We believe that the contract will be for less than 100,000 in 1997 with potentially much more significant volumes in 1998, 1999 and 2000 and that pricing will be in $500 price range.
This price point includes both the ADSL modem and an allocated cost for the DSLAM product which resides in the telco central office. Alcatel, Ericsson and Westell (WSTL-30-NR) were the front runners to win the ADSL business.
Why Did Alcatel Win?
Here are some of the factors that we believe led to the selection of Alcatel:
1) Price. We believe that Alcatel came in at an attractive price. In
1997 we expect the costs of the ADSL units to be near $1,000 and that the Gang of Four will commit to some volume which will enable Alcatel to offer better prices.
While a $300 per line has been thrown about, we believe that the price
will becloser to $500 with the potential of falling under $500 after a few years.
These price points include the cost of the modem and an allocated cost
per user for the ATM based DSLAM product which resides in the central office.
2) Time To Market For DMT: Alcatel is the only vendor that will be able to deliver DMT ADSL units in volume in the time frame specified by the Gang of Four. Although the Gang of Four took responses from CAP vendors, they were clearly looking to go with DMT. Alcatel has a subsidiary called Mietec which is currently manufacturing the DMT chips for use in Alcatel's ADSL units and will have DMT chips available early next year. It is Alcatel's Mietec's plan to sell the DMT chips to other vendors. The other two DMT chipset vendors Motorola (MOT-48-Hold) and Analog Devices will not have chipsets in
volume until the second half of 1997 at the earliest. The visible DMT ADSL modem vendors like Westell and Amati are relying upon Motorola for DMT chips while Aware will be getting chips from Analog Devices. We believe that Motorola is currently behind Analog Devices in having chips available in 1997.
Currently Alcatel's DMT solution is not in compliance with the DMT standard of which the rights are held by Amati (AMTX-23-NR). Alcatel is in the process of licensing or cross licensing with Amati for the right to use Amati's DMT. Alcatel claims to have filed for fourteen technology patents which may be desirable to Amati and so the two companies may cross-license each other's patented technology.
______________________________
Source: MicroPatent
MicroPatent via Individual Inc. : Abstract: An improved discrete multi-tone transmission scheme is describe that contemplates encoding digital data and modulating the encoded data onto a discrete multi-tone signal having a total bandwidth of at least 1.6 MHz. The modulation system is capable of dynamically updating the subcarriers used and the amount of data transmitted on each subcarrier during transmission in order to accommodate real time changes
in the line quality over particular subcarriers. In one preferred embodiment of the invention the multi-tone encoding and modulation is done in substantial compliance with the ATIS North American Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines standard although a total of 512 subchannels each having a bandwidth of approximately 4.3125 kHz are used. In this system, the subchannels that occur at frequencies above those set forth in the standard are treated similarly to those within the standard range in terms of subcarrier selection criteria. This embodiment contemplates the use of a discrete multi-tone signal having an available bandwidth of 2.208 MHz. The described system permits
transmission of digital data at transmission rates of 6 Mbps over telephone lines at distances of two miles even on lines that experience significant T1 crosstalk noise. In one application of the invention, it may be used with ordinary telephone lines such as twisted pair lines to transmit data to remote receivers located up to six thousand feet from the transmitter at digital data transmission rates of at least ten million bits per second (10 Mbps). With more
subchannels provided, the number of subchannels available for upstream communications may also be increased.
Ex Claim Text: A discrete multi-tone transmitter that is suitable for transmitting digital data over a twisted pair communication line on a multiplicity of subcarriers having different frequencies, the transmitter comprising: an encoder for encoding digital information, the encoder being capable of encoding digital information at speeds in
excess of six megabits per second; a modulator for modulating the encoded digital information onto a multiplicity of subcarriers in a discrete multi-tone signal, each subcarrier corresponding to an associated tone and an associated subchannel, wherein the available subcarriers for the discrete multi-tone encoded signal have a combined
bandwidth of at least 1.6 MHz, the modulation being arranged to take into consideration at least detected line quality parameters and a permissible power mask parameter, and wherein the modulation is capable of dynamically updating both the subchannels used and the amount of data transmitted on each subchannel during transmission in
order to accommodate real time changes in specific parameters; and an adder for appending a cyclic prefix to the discrete multi-tone signal before it is applied to the transmission line.
Assignee: Amati Communications Corporation
Patent Number: 5519731
Issue Date: 1996 05 21
Inventor(s): Cioffi, John M.
If you would like to purchase a copy of this patent, please call MicroPatent at 800-984-9800.
____________
Amati Patents: MOTOROLA pays AMATI the royalties payable at the end of each quarterly period.
From the MOT & AMTX agreement on Edgar.
sec.gov
Amati Patents:
1. GROUP I PATENTS AND PATENT APPLICATIONS (JOINTLY FILED
BY AMATI AND NORTHERN TELECOM)
1.1 Bit Swap Protocol
Title: "Updating of Bit Allocations in a Multicarrier
Modulation Transmission System."
Inventors: Ronald R. Hunt and Peter S. Chow
File Date: August 9, 1993
US serial no: 08/109,489 Amati Docket No.: 93-1
1.2 Fast/Slow Concept
Title: "Multicarrier Modulation Transmission System with Variable Delay."
Inventors: John M. Cioffi, Po Tong, James T. Aslanis, and Antoinette H. Gooch
Fille Date: August 1993
US serial no: 08/107,200 Amati Docket No.: 93-2
1.3 Clip Mitigation
Title: "Mitigation Clipping and Quantization Effects in Digital Transmission System."
Inventors: Jacky S. Chow, John A.C. Bingham, Mark B. Flowers, and John M. Cioffi
File Date: December 1993
US serial no: 08/165,509 Amati Docket No.: 93-3
1.4 Recovery from Microinterruptions
Title: "Frame Synchronization in Multicarrier Transmission Systems."
Inventors: James T. Aslanis & Jacky S. Chow
File Date: December 1993
US serial no: 08/275,409 Amati Docket No.: 93-4
2. GROUP II PATENTS AND PATENT APPLICATIONS
2.1 Time-domain Equalizer (TEQ) - Stanford Patent
Title: "Method for Equalizing a Multicarrier Signal in a Multicarrier Communication System."
Inventors: Jacky S. Chow and John M. Cioffi
File Date: June 16, 1992 Issued: February 8, 1994
US Patent #: 5,285,474 Stanford Docket No.: S92-019
2.2 DMT Echo Canceller - Stanford Patent
Title: "Method and Apparatus for Echo Cancellation with Discrete Multitone Modulation."
Inventors: Minnie Ho and John M. Cioffi
File Date: December 1, 1992 Issued: May 31, 1994
US pat. no: 5,317,596 Stanford Docket No.: S91-040
2.3 Continuous Bandwidth Optimization - Stanford Patent
Title: "Method and Apparatus for Adaptive Variable Bandwidth Optimization in High-Speed Data Transmission of a Multicarrier Signal over Digital Subscriber Lines."
Inventors: Peter S. Chow and John M. Cioffi
File Date: May 3, 1993
US serial no: 08/057,301 Stanford Docket No.: S92-018
2.3(a) Continuous Bandwidth Optimization - Stanford Patent Continuation
Title: "Method and Apparatus for Adaptive Variable Bandwidth Optimization in High-Speed Data Transmission of a Multicarrier Signal over Digital Subscriber Lines - MSE Estimation."
Inventors: Peter S. Chow and John M. Cioffi
File Date: 1995
US serial no: ?? Stanford Docket No.: S92-018
2.4 DMT Training
Title: "Method and Apparatus for Training the Receivers of a Discrete Multitone Modulation System."
Inventors: J. Aslanis, J.S. Chow, P.S. Chow, J. Cioffi, E. Gaut, T. Zogakis
File Date: To be filed in 1995
US serial no: ?? Amati Docket No.: ??
2.5 Front-end Circuitry
Title: "The line driver circuits for both ATU-R and ATU-C."
Inventors: M. Agah, J. Bingham, and M. Flowers
File Date: To be filed in 1995
US serial no: ?? Amati Docket No.: ??
2.6 A Combined Oversampled/Filtered DAC
Title: "An apparatus for effectively increasing the number of bits resolution in a DAC converter with minimal complexity."
Inventors: M. Flowers
File Date: 1995
US serial no: ?? Amati Docket No.: ??
2.7 Tong's Interleaver
Title: "An Interleaving/Deinterleaving Apparatus for
Reduced-Memory Convolutional Interleaving of data streams."
Inventors: Po Tong and Jim Aslanis
File Date: January 1995
US serial no: ?? Amati Docket No.: ??
_______________________
From AOL
Subj: Re: Aware/Amati Patent
Date: 96-07-02 12:42:42 EDT
From: Sharkonep
The complete Aware S-1 filing is interesting (which can be found at
sec.gov certainly does raise questions
concerning the Amati patent position with respect to ANSI-compliant product.
Only after talking with a member of the Amati management team today (Mr. Carlini), did I appreciate the following points:
1. Aware is not done talking to Amati, and neither is ADI, concerning patent and licensing issues because of Amati's very strong patent position with respect to ANSI-compliant ADSL products (but not necessarily with respect to non-ANSI compliant products), with respect to what Amati has seen of the Aware and ADI products and with respect to Telebit's paper claim (which ignores the fact that Telebit did not claim ownership of the technology when the ANSI standards were being developed. Thus, not only has Telebit sat on its rights, and obligations, to protect what it claims is its property, it has waived any right to claim title given the time, effort and expense that other have devoted to product development based upon that waiver. Amati management said they it would have its patent attorneys, a well-known San Francisco firm, look at the Aware S-1).
2. Based upon the limited description of the S-1 that I read to management, which had not yet read the Aware S-1 (which was about to be downloaded by Amati much faster than I could on my T-1 line), management suggested that reference to non-infringement of Aware products could only be true if the products was non ANSI-compliant (this also helped make sense of Section 8.4 of the Aware/ADI Agreement appended to the S-!). Overall, the Aware S-1 does not make it clear whether or not its products are ANSI-compliant and, indeed, there are suggestions in the S-1 that Aware views its market for ADSL to be
non-ANSI compliant.
3. As to manufacturing prospects, Amati believes that it can handle the important, and presumably profitable parts, from soup to nuts, including central office, routing and networking equipment (a question that I have always had in the back of my mind); all it needs is for the trials to be completed, decisions made and orders placed. That being said, assuming reasonable execution on manufacturing and assembly, Amati promises to be much more than a recipient of licensing fees. Once further relationships are established (with NEC and Motoral being described as the "tip of the iceberg"), and telcos, either in the U.S. or foreign, are ready to proceed, Amati will need to complete a secondary offering, which presumably will reflect a price based upon the results of the trials, public discussion and
recognition of Amati's patent position, confirmation of the importance of ANSI compliance (and, therefore, the importance of the patents), further definition of the scope of the markets for Amati's products as well as further definition of Amati's products.
In short, my 30-minute phone call today with Amati reaffirmed much of what I have read previously on the board, but it was good to be able to point to words written by Aware to put Amati's position in context, and to get a better picture of Amati's robust-looking future.
4. Finally, it seems clear enough that Amati's focus is worldwide, unlike many of its competitors.
Staying long,
_________________ |
