A patent dispute is heating things up between three companies that provide solutions for controlling RF interference.
ISCO International Inc. has filed a lawsuit against Conductus Inc. and Superconductor Technologies Inc. for infringing on its patent for cryoelectronically cooled receiver front end (CRFE) for mobile radio stations. The disputed product refers to filters that prevent in-band and out-of-band interference of mobile transmissions.
The company said the U.S. Patent Office issued the license on July 14 after seven years of consideration.
“The patent is based upon applications originally filed in 1995, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted it after a full review of the prior art,” said George Calhoun, ISCO’s chairman and chief executive. “We believe that this appropriately recognizes the pioneering work done to establish this entire market application.” He said the solution, which is one of its 105 patents owned by ISCO, is the most important in the cryoelectronics industry.
“ISCO holds or has applied for over 100 patents, encompassing over 700 issued claims focused primarily on applications pertinent to the commercial wireless telecommunications industry,” he said.
Conductus denied any wrongdoing. “Conductus has reviewed in detail the allegations set forth in ISCO’s complaint, and we believe we have several well-founded defenses,” said Charles Shalvoy, president and CEO. “We intend to defend vigorously, and we’ve filed our own counterclaim against ISCO seeking a judgment that the ISCO patent is invalid and not infringed by Conductus.”
Calhoun said the company hopes to stop both defendants from manufacturing and selling their products.
“We have the presumption of validity,” said Calhoun, adding that the case may not be heard until sometime next year. The case was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
Shalvoy, who claims that his company had not heard of the ISCO claim until its July 17 press release, points out three key issues in its counterclaim. The first point is that the “patent relates to minor technical aspects of our products.”
The second point is that he believes that his company has not infringed on any patent. The third counterclaim, he said, is that “we believe that the patent is invalid.”
“The idea of the patent was being discussed publicly before they ever filed for patent,’ he said.
ISCO was formed from the combination of three companies, which included Illinois Superconductors, Spectral Solutions Inc. and Lockheed Martin Adaptive Notch Filter Co.
Calhoun said the CRFE solution is focused on third-generation services and the company has been working with NTT DoCoMo. He said its superconductor filters are used in CRFE. The company also has the adaptive notch filter, a military-type system designed for frequency band and to identify and remove jamming signals.
“We have adapted this for commercial operators for in-band interference,” he said.
