Out with the old, in with the new

Despite being around for more than 30 years, GPS is only now finding favour as the technology of choice for use in an ever-widening range of mobile electronic devices – everything from giraffe’s collars and ski goggles to cameras and mobile phones. But what is driving this interest and as some of the earliest GPS patents expire, should electronics engineers expect to find it more difficult to protect their inventions in the future?

GPS is a US global positioning system that uses satellite technology and time code information in order to provide the precise global location of an electronic receiver. Originally created for use by the US military, the technology has become more accurate and the receivers are much smaller, making them suitable for application in a variety of hand-held electronic devices.

However, US ownership of this popular technology has long been a bone of contention for governments around the world and the EU announced plans to create its own Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), called Galileo, back in 2004. Despite suffering some delays, in January this year, the first Galileo contracts were announced and the system is now planned to be operational in early 2014.

Galileo will work alongside US GPS and the Russian Glonass system, using the same frequency band as GPS, and its technologies are expected to be standardised through the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), leading to an innovation race as engineers rush to have their proprietary inventions included in any Galileo standards set, and to commercialise applications of the newly-available technology. Galileo’s progress is timely and should help GNSS innovation find a new lease of life, despite the fact that many of the original GPS patents are ending or have already ended their life.

The current focus for GNSS-related innovation is improvement technologies. For example, technologies that use less power; use the same receiver components for the multiple systems; lock on to the satellite signals
more quickly or facilitate easier integration in some way. With the deadline now set for Galileo going operational, the pace of research and development activity in these areas is expected to increase in the run up to 2014.

As the marketplace for GNSS technology evolves, there are likely to be similarities with the mobile phone industry, particularly if Galileo moves down the ETSI standards track. In such a case, it is likely that standard-essential patents would be held by a small number of big patent holders, with monopoly rights to the key technologies. This has been the outcome for the mobile phone industry and results from the fact that it tends to be large technology companies with significant resources that can afford the time and manpower to contribute to the standards setting process. However, as in the mobile phone industry, this could mean more litigation and early patent holders may need to prepare their portfolios with this in mind.

One way to avoid such a litigious outcome may be to make use of a patent pool for Galileo-essential patents. Much like the established, successful MPEG patent pool, this would act as a one stop licensing shop for technology companies that want to use the pool’s standardised technologies. In addition, if the MPEG model is followed, a measure of self-policing is introduced in that patents would only be accepted into the pool if they are considered essential by independent adjudicators. If a patent pool is established for Galileo, patent holders will need to decide whether to seek entry to the pool in the hope that others will do likewise and the commercial gains will be amplified due to critical mass, or whether to go it alone and risk the consequences. This is rarely an easy or straightforward decision and strategic patent advice is recommended.

There are currently two types of innovator in this field – application developers seeking to apply provided satellite navigation technology in order to identify the location of a receiver which is then used in some other application and those developing new GNSS technologies per se. It is the latter group that need to be most cautious and use their knowledge of current patents and the direction the industry is headed to take the right decisions at the right moment.