TELCORDIA GETS PACKET PATENT

Almost seven years and millions of development dollars later, Telcordia Technologies announced last week it has been awarded U.S. patent number 6,724,747 for its method and system for media connectivity over a packet-based network, otherwise knows as its softswitch architecture.

With the patent, the company has made its technology available for licensing by softswitch providers and providers of related technologies such as feature servers. Telcordia began developing softswitches for Class 4 and Class 5 applications in 1997, the year it submitted its preliminary application. The broad technology enabled the disaggregation of feature components used in a traditional circuit switch and made them available in a packet-based environment. Although Telcordia abandoned its telco-based softswitch, the company continued to develop a concurrent project for the cable industry.

“We started out building Class 4 and Class 5 softswitches, but then signed a contract with Videotron and started enabling the cable-based functionality associated with that,” said Michael Cook, vice president at SAIC, Telcordia's parent company, and one of the original designers and architects of the patented technology while at Telcordia (see figure).

Telcordia wants to identify potential licensees of its technology and may ask existing softswitch vendors to pay licensing fees. “We are in the process of looking at whose products would likely need a license. We are doing our homework now,” said Rick de Pinho, director of patent licensing at Telcordia.

The technology likely used in other softswitch architectures is what Cook calls a distributed half-call model that allows a centralized softswitch comprising multiple components to connect one side of a call from a line-side device to the other using a media gateway connected to a T-1 trunk off the public network by way of a communication bus.

“It is technically possible to build a softswitch in a single call model, but we think qualitatively that there is a likelihood other manufacturers have gone down this route and developed a solution using the intellectual property we have in our patent,” Cook said.

Telcordia isn't looking for hassles and hopes companies will license the technology voluntarily, said Current Analysis analyst Joe McGarvey. “I believe them when they say they will stop short of imposing any heavy financial burden that impedes development. That wouldn't benefit anybody,” McGarvey said.

De Pinho agreed. “We don't want to see the industry shut down, but we want to recoup the money we invested,” he said.

Norm Bogen, a director at In-Stat/MDR, said seeking licenses on patented technology is a familiar pattern for some companies. “I have seen the strategy before. If you aren't successful with your product, you go after the patent. You won't make a lot of money, but you can recoup some of the R&D,” Bogen said.

However, Telcordia is still developing its own PacketCable-certified softswitch, which is currently in production with an Indonesian operator.

Bogen said Telcordia has some serious catching up to do, but its software portfolio might help. “The integration with OSS software is non-trivial,” he said. “Getting systems to work well is Telcordia's strength.”

He added that while Telcordia's cable portfolio is not as complete as Nortel Networks' and Cisco Systems', independent companies with limited product lines can survive in cable. He sited as an example Nuera Communications, which has been successful selling its gateways into the cable market.

“If I were Telcordia, I would try to partner with Nuera and use that combination to compete with Nortel and Cisco,” Bogen said.

Several softswitch vendors contacted for this article would not to comment on Telcordia's claims.

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MEDIA CONNECTIVITY OVER A PACKET-BASED NETWORK

United States Patent No: US 6,724,747 B1

Provisional application: Dec. 03, 1997

Filed on Dec. 03, 1998

Date of patent: April 20, 2004

Inventors:

Mauricio Arango: Weston, Fla. Louis Cahl: Edison, N.J. Michael J. Cook: Flemington, N.J. Thomas C. Ely: Bridgewater, N.J.

Christian Huitema: New York Frederick Obrock: Scotch Plains, N.J. Darek A. Smyk: Piscataway, N.J.

ASSIGNEE: TELCORDIA TECHNOLOGIES

Methods and systems for a distributed scalable hardware-independent system that supports multiple functions regarding management and support of communications over a packet-based network. The communications supported by these methods and systems include VoIP, voice over Asynchronous Transfer Mode video conferencing, data transfer, telephony and downloading video or other data.