Steven J. Crowley, P.E.
Consulting Engineer
Archive for the ‘Patents’ Category
Improving Government Efficiency with Technology
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The Washington Post reports on a speech by White House Budget Director Peter Orszag:
“The U.S. Patent Office receives 80 percent of its applications electronically. But then patent office bureaucrats have to print them out and scan them by hand into an outdated case management system.”
Mobile patent lawsuits in perspective
Larry Downes explores several drivers of mobile patent lawsuits, and suggests a mobile-device patent pool as one solution. Moreover, he says, mobile device winners will be those companies focusing on compelling consumer offerings, instead of patent disputes.
Progress toward an LTE/SAE patent pool
Sisvel announces it is working with 20 companies to try to form a patent pool for 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) and System Architecture Evolution (SAE). It invites other companies to participate. Urgent Communications has a take on this from a public safety perspective, and notes MPEG LA and Via Licensing are also trying to form patent pools. VIA Licensing may soon announce the status of its progress.
Google patent application: Estimating wireless device location using measured data rates
Location-based services are reaching beyond navigation and E911. Social networking, advertising, and other emerging applications are driving research and development into better technologies in support of these services, starting with the location estimation process itself.
Today, there are several ways to determine the location of a wireless device in a network. As a rough estimate, the device knows the identification of the base station or access point with which it is associated. That’s a start, but a base station can cover a wide area. To refine that, devices can use GPS. Networks of cellular base stations can measure differences in the timing or signal strength of an uplink signal, and use the results to estimate location. MAC addresses of Wi-Fi access points can be sniffed and mapped by roving monitors. Sometimes, two or more of these techniques are used in concert.
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