Andrew LLC has filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court in Delaware seeking a declaratory judgment that its multiple-range estimation location (MREL) system for locating mobile devices does not infringe an existing U.S. patent held by TruePosition Inc. The same patent was the subject of previous litigation between the two companies, including a judgment now under appeal by Andrew, a division of CommScope.

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“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 of wireless network solutions at 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.”

According to Andrew, its MREL location system uses time of arrival (TOA) range ring technology that meets or exceeds performance metrics offered by other high-accuracy technologies such as uplink time difference of arrival (U-TDOA) in most environments. Andrew also says that the TruePosition patent in question, U.S. Pat. No. 5,327,144, is limited to certain U-TDOA applications. The MREL technology is part of Andrew’s GeoLENs (GeoLocation-Enabled Network solutions) portfolio.

“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.”

MREL is designed for mobile operators supporting FCC E911 Phase II requirements, commercial location-based services (LBS), and security applications. Unlike U-TDOA, MREL doesn’t rely on the time differences of signal arrivals at multiple sensor sites. In certain environments, it can generate accurate location information with just two sensor sites using absolute times of signal transmission and arrival. U-TDOA requires three sensor sites for accuracy.

After testing in a comprehensive set of environments, Andrew says, MREL offers a high-accuracy location capability in areas where A-GPS and U-TDOA may fail. Coupled with the other location technologies available in GeoLENs, the company says, MREL provides the most complete and competitive solution on the market both for LBS and for E911 applications.

Andrew

TruePosition Inc.