T-Mobile Sued for HotSpot@Home Patent Infringement
By Simon Sage on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 7:06 AM PST In T-Mobile, UMA
T-Mobile could find themselves in some hot water as patent-holder Calypso Wireless begins legal actions to protect their cellular-to-Wi-Fi handoff technology. T-Mobile (NYSE: DT)’s HotSpot@Home lets subscribers have unlimited calling when using their Wi-Fi-capable handset within their home Wi-Fi network, or when using one of T-Mobile’s thousands of hotspots across the U.S. The tricky part is making sure you can move from one network to another without an interruption service (i.e. dropping calls when going from Wi-Fi to cell, or vice versa).
Patent number 6,680,923 details how a device could seamlessly switch between two networks while maintaining the same connection, which could prove to be bad news for other UMA service providers, like Rogers (NYSE: RCI) and their Talkspot program. It’s a growingly-popular service, and Calypso in a good position to cash in with infringement claims. Their president, Richard Pattin, was pretty smug about the whole thing.
“This is a significant turning point for Calypso, as we believe it will open the doors for hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing opportunities. Calypso has invested significantly in the discovery, development and continued advancement of FMC. When others make use of our patented technology, we will continue to take aggressive action including the enforcement of our legal rights.”
[via Cellular-News]
I have been following Calypso Wireless for years. They filed the patent in 2000 and began marketing it. There was no significant wi-fi industry at the time. In 2003 Calypso had manufactured the first dual mode phone, again to a big industry yawn. Then in late 2003 early 2004, the companies Calypso had been marketing to formed the UMA alliance to accomplish SFMC. Their earliest website had a flow diagram that was almost a copy of the ‘923 patent diagram. They just “forgot” about Calypso in the process.
Time to remember.