University Claims Bluetooth Using Unlicensed Technology

Just before last Christmas, a patent rights holder called the Washington Research Institute, which manages patents for universities and their students, filed suit in US District Court in Washington against Matsushita, Samsung, and Nokia, claiming that chipsets they use in their Bluetooth-enabled handsets infringe upon patents they hold on behalf of an Arizona inventor.

While not a direct challenge to Bluetooth itself, the suit calls into question how manufacturers choose to enable Bluetooth in their products, and whether patent law can be leveraged to steer them into implementing Bluetooth in a certain way.

Among the patents currently held by electrical engineer and former University of Washington student Edwin Suominen are three which deal with the topic of converting high-frequency signals to baseband frequencies in a single step. The technique involves quadrature, or the pairing of waveforms about 90 degrees out of phase with one another, like winding two springs together. These appear to be the patents at issue; BetaNews has contacted the Washington Research Foundation, which manages the allegedly infringed patents, for clarification.

Last month, the lead attorney for WRF told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that defendants in this lawsuit had three options: Argue they're not really violating these patents, start paying royalties to WRF directly, or license the technology from the one firm that legally provides it: Broadcom.

Broadcom is one of the world's leading providers of Bluetooth chipsets for handhelds. Another is Conexant, which in June of 2000 acquired Philsar Semiconductor, the company originally contracted by Matsushita to develop Bluetooth chipsets for its Panasonic handsets. Philsar and Matsushita has only entered into the project three months earlier. Conexant currently provides chipsets for Matsushita.

Cambridge Silicon Radio is another major chipset provider, with plans announced just last month to produce a "universal Bluetooth chipset." Its goal is to be able to incorporate 802.11g on all the world's recognized frequencies, using MIMO (multiple antenna) technology, and we may see some evidence of CSR-enabled handsets next week at CES 2007 in Las Vegas.

But the way CSR may be converting high Wi-Fi frequencies such as 6 GHz down to baseband levels, could be the bone of contention in this case, and a preliminary injunction could conceivably set back manufacturers' goals.

So at the heart of this issue could very well be whether a manufacturer chooses to use chipsets from Brand A or Brand B or C, if B and C don't license their methods from a particular patent-holder. A Seattle Times story this morning cites the same WRF attorney as saying his client chose to sue handset manufacturers rather than chipset manufacturers such as CSR or Conexant, because the chipset makers would not be aware of which foreign-made handsets including the allegedly infringing technology would be exported to the US, whereas the manufacturers would.

The possibility now exists that the next generation of Bluetooth handsets may be held up in court, over the issue of whether a UW student in 1996 truly invented and patented one method by which high-frequency signals can be re-modulated into lower ones.