Andrew Asks Court to Clear New Technology in Patent Case

­Antennas vendor, Andrew has filed a complaint in the US District Court in Delaware seeking a declaratory judgment that its new multiple range estimation location (MREL) system for locating mobile devices does not infringe an existing US patent held by TruePosition.

The same patent was the subject of previous litigation between the two companies, including a judgment now under appeal by Andrew.

"As communications carriers seek to stay ahead of customer demand for location applications, Andrew plans to address these needs with solutions that include MREL," said Eddie Edwards, executive vice president and general manager, Wireless Network Solutions, Andrew. "We want to do so free of possible patent issues, clearing the way for customers to enjoy the additional benefits that MREL brings to Andrew's GeoLENs portfolio of caller location solutions for communications networks."

Andrew says that the TruePosition patent in question, US Pat. No. 5,327,144, is limited to certain U-TDOA applications, and shouldn't infringe its application.

"We strongly believe MREL does not infringe on any existing TruePosition patents, and we filed this complaint after making a good faith effort to work with them to gain their acknowledgement of this position," Edwards said. "We want the marketplace to be free of the threat of future legal actions and allegations, and want customers to able to choose for themselves which location systems are best for their network needs."

The patent-pending MREL, part of the GeoLENs portfolio introduced in July, will be aimed at mobile operators that are supporting FCC E911 Phase II requirements, commercial location-based services (LBS) and security applications. Unlike U-TDOA, MREL does not rely on time differences of signal arrival at multiple sensor sites. In certain environments, it is able to generate accurate location information with just two sensor sites using absolute times of signal transmission and arrival. U-TDOA alone cannot generate accurate location information with anything less than three sensor sites.

Posted to the site on 10th September 2009