Marden:
I've been following this thread since the subject first came up over at Last Mile.
Certainly all the long time holders of the stock have reason to feel good given the notice the company is now receiving - not to mention the price appreciation.
However, permit me to express a cautionary note.
You wrote:
...Time will tell -- if Cisco's VOFDM products are in violation of Wi-Lan's WOFDM Patent(s), but it is my belief that, this patent issue, is not really of any great importance.
IMO, the patent issue is a critical issue and, to be quite frank, there is no way, on public message boards, to determine the value and criticality of Wi-Lans's intellectual property.
One can go over to the US patent office and do a keyword search using "OFDM" on patent abstracts.
128.109.179.23
Specify 1976-1999 in the database contents selection box.
One receives 55 hits.
Hatim defined wideband as
...Also, I am not certain that DMT had any intentions of being wideband. We gave a number of definitions of wideband in our patent. These definitions include: 1. if bandwidth occupied is wide enough that the propagation channel is frequency selective meaning different subchannels are subjected to different channel characteristics, or 2. if the subchannels are far enough apart from each other that an implementation can be made without discrete (rf hardware) carrier recovery. #reply-11767636
Depending upon one's point of view, point number one is either a foundation principle or so vague as to be unenforceable. I certainly don't know the answer.
The bottom line is this. OFDM in all its flavors has been in development throughout the 90s. The European digital broadcasting standard is based upon OFDM. Equipment has been manufactured and systems are on the air. Lots of people have had a role in baking this pie, so its not necessarily proper to characterize the situation as a Cisco / Wi-Lan face-off. But the patent is still important since this is the foundation of the potential revenue stream from products manufactured in compliance with IEEE 802.11a - not to mention other future products and applications yet unknown.
FWIW
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