From Ericy report:
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"Ericsson has received word that the United States Patent and
Trademark Office has validated a total of 36 new and amended claims in
one of Ericsson's key patents on 'soft handoff', an Ericsson invention
that is essential to the practice of U.S. wireless telecommunications
standard IS- 95.
Over the past three months the U.S. Patent Office has allowed
three such Ericsson patents. The successful reissue of these three
patents confirms that Ericsson is the true inventor of the 'soft
handoff' and 'macrodiversity' concepts that are fundamental to IS-95."
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They are going for broke. The June 1989 patent is pretty easy to read. Like analogue systems for years before, you have to hand the call off to another station. So they don't get to patent the concept of shifting the transaction from one base station to another. They are claiming a patent on a method. One single method. Not the concept of checking signal strengths etc and swapping to the stronger one.
The details of the method is what matters. They are referring to a single channel swap - so that if an adjacent cellsite has the same channel free, the cellphone can use that one. I suppose that gives a smoother handover, with less snap crackle and pop, dead time and dropped calls.
The mechanism, which is what a patent describes, is completely different for cdmaOne. All warm fuzzies, across the whole bandwidth. No nasty channel switching and dead time with snap crackle pop followed by a dropped call. Software cunningly measures a few decibels then the handset is smoothly sailing in the new zone, with a friendly wave goodbye from Babe.
Ericy, to use an analogy, is trying to claim the concept of an engine. "A method to propel an object. This method, using pistons, steam and coal is designed to blah blah blah."
Oh, oh looks like we can forget about inventing a diesel engine. No Otto cycles. No rotary engines or two strokes. No gas turbines. No fuel cells and electric motors. Oh, maybe fuel cells are okay if they don't use fossil fuels.
Having become an expert since reading the discussions here, it seems that Ericy is staking their future on this patent dispute. And they don't have a leg to stand on. I'm such an expert now that I think I'll go sit some bar exams.
Funny that the patent office would award QUALCOMM patents on handoff too, when they had just issued what Ericy claims is the same thing just a few months before.
Ericy 'has received word'. What does that mean? A whisper on the grapevine or the real deal - hardcopy pieces of Patent Office wax sealed parchment. In any event, these reissues seem to be just a bundling of existing stuff related to TDMA so that it is all in one parchment, not any approval or acknowledgement that 'hey, you guys really invented cdma in mobile'. Maybe they have managed to hook the magic words 'cdma' 'soft handoff' 'power control' 'near far problem' into their TDMA claims. That wouldn't be hard, and could fool some people on a jury [if that's how these things are handled] into thinking that it does sorta sound the same as what QUALCOMM is doing.
"Can we see those two sticks in the bathtub again please your honor".
"If it don't fit, you must acquit!"
"Looks like waves to me Martha. What about you Fred? Yeah - sho' 'nuff, that's one of them thar cellfone critter"
Mqurice |
