Patents are a common thread running through the great debates of the day concerning strongest/adequate signal, E911 federal land antenna siting, 3G, prepaid calling and other telecom issues.
This should come as no surprise. In a new report, the Commerce Department links the United States’ competitive edge in info technology with its patent leadership.
The more parochial question is whether wireless policy is driving patent creation or vice versa.
The cellular industry has accused Robert Zicker-director of intellectual property management at GTE Services Corp. and owner of strongest-signal patents-of colluding with consumer advocates and trial lawyers to get strongest signal mandated by the FCC. As such, it was alleged early on that Zicker merely was a swarmy capitalist trying to cash in on his intellectual property rights and that his invention didn’t work anyway.
The Ad Hoc Alliance for Public Access to 911, the consumer player in the cabal with Zicker and the trial lawyers, recently offered a compromise adequate-signal proposal. Still, the cellular industry balked at it.
Then there is John Melcher, information systems director of Greater Harris County’s 911 Emergency Network in Texas. Melcher claims patents for emergency communications systems solutions that have been licensed by a top manufacturer for global distribution.
Melcher was a high-profile supporter of an E911 antenna-siting bill pushed by CTIA. That bill died in Congress. There is a view that a strongest, or adequate, signal rule would lessen the need for duplicate towers, which in turn undermines the rationale for the law.
Needing strong public-safety backing to market the E911 bill, CTIA and the ComCare Alliance made Melcher its 911 poster child. The Ad Hoc Alliance suspects a quid pro quo: Melcher backed the E911 measure in exchange for industry goodwill toward his patented 911 solution.
Overshadowing E911 and strongest/adequate signal controversies is 3G. The patent issue is front and center in Qualcomm Inc.’s quest to pry open the Euro market and dominate-via licensing-the future world market of next-generation wireless gadgets that look like mobile phones and act like computers.
Qualcomm says CDMA-based standards, especially the one embraced by Sweden’s L.M. Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia Corp., cannot go forward without its blessing.
But wait. Qualcomm says there is a way for GSM backers short of court. It’s this: Converge CDMA-based 3G standards.
The EU, Ericsson, Nokia and GSM carriers in the United States aren’t buying, however.
But the Clinton administration may be.
