I always find it amusing that some people refer to "proprietary technology standards like IS-95, cdma2000 (IS-2000) or IS-856,". Just because technologies are developed to meet the needs of certain markets IN A CERTAIN TIME FRAME, does not mean that they are "proprietary" in the sense that some put forward.
Having seen and experienced the development and deployment of those standards, ALL of them had multiple companies participating in the development, and ALL of them have multiple IP holders....who btw, license their portfolio of 3gpp2 "proprietary" patents.
In contrast, the circle jerk in 3GPP to create "open" standards (ROF!) has lead to HUGE delays....and HIGHER ROYALTIES!
From a report published on Nokia's www site:
nokia.com
III. THIRD GENERATION CELLULAR STANDARDS
Among the many types of standards, the ones that specify the
details of telecommunications equipment are in the category of
“compatibility specifications” [14]. Their purpose is to insure
that different types of conforming equipment (for example
cellular telephones and base stations) will operate correctly
when they interact. The technologies covered by 3G cellular
standards reside in three domains: core network, radio access
network, and user equipment. These categories are only
partly reflected in the organizational structure of 3GPP and
3GPP2. Both projects have assigned the formulation of
specifications to Technical Specification Groups (TSG).
However, the definitions of the TSGs are different in the two
projects. The TSGs in 3GPP are concerned with (a) core
network, (b) radio access network, (c) terminals, and (d)
services and systems aspects [15]. In 3GPP2, the TSGs are (a)
access network interfaces, (b) CDMA2000, (c) services and
systems aspects, (d) intersystem operations, (e) core network,
and (f) packet data [16].
Although the technologies in the two projects cover the same
ground, there are several differences in working methods. One
difference is that 3GPP periodically produces a complete
current version of its specifications in a sequence of Releases.
At the beginning of 2004, the specifications were components
of Release 5, consisting of 383 Technical Specifications in
four categories. This number excludes the specifications
published by TSG GERAN, covering the latest versions of
GSM, GPRS, and EDGE. It also excludes TS21.101 [17],
which contains a list of all the Technical Reports and
Technical Specifications published by 3GPP.
By contrast, 3GPP2 does not periodically publish a new
release of the entire CDMA2000 standard. Instead, each TSG
in 3GPP2 publishes a new version of one of its specifications
when the version is approved. At the beginning of 2004, the
documentation of 3GPP2 included 100 approved Technical
Specifications in six categories.
The disparity in numbers of specifications produced by the
two partnership projects reflects the fact that 3GPP divides the
standardization effort into smaller tasks than 3GPP2. 3GPP
also publishes a large number of specifications devoted to
project organization and management as distinct from
definitions of technologies. Beyond this difference in style,
there are different definitions of technology categories. 3GPP2
considers codecs and security technologies to be part of the
radio access network (CDMA2000), while in 3GPP they are
included among services and systems aspects. 3GPP classifies
interfaces between the radio access network and other
networks to be part of the radio access network. In 3GPP2
these interfaces comprise a separate category of standards.
Our sources for patents and patent applications declared
essential to 3G technology are the web sites of three standards
organizations. ETSI lists patents declared essential to 3GPP
[18], as well as patents declared essential to other technologies
standardized by ETSI including GSM. The web sites of the
Japanese standards organizations ARIB [19], [20], and TTC
[21] contain information about patents and patent applications
declared essential to both third generation technologies. The
ARIB notation for 3GPP standards is T63. The TTC notation
is 3GA. For 3GPP2, the respective notations are T64 (ARIB)
and 3GB (TTC). In the United States, the web site of the
Telecommunications Industry Association contains statements
by companies that have agreed to license essential patents on a
non-discriminatory basis [23] but it does not contain lists of
individual patents and patent applications.
Our study of WCDMA intellectual property is based on the
ETSI list containing 6,872 patents and patent applications at
the beginning of 2004. For CDMA2000, we used both ARIB
and TTC, which together identified 924 items as of February5, 2004. We analyzed the 7,796 patents and patent applications
declared essential to the two technologies in order to cluster
patents and applications into “patent families”. The members
of a family are patents and patent applications produced in
different countries for a single invention. After examining
declared patent applications to determine whether a patent was
subsequently issued, we identified for WCDMA 732 patent
families with patents issued prior to January 1, 2004. There
were 527 patent families for CDMA2000 with patents issued
prior to February 5, 2004. There is considerable overlap in the
declarations for the two technologies: 372 inventions were
declared essential to both technologies. |
