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Staccato Communications Supports UWB Markets with Royalty-Free Technology for IEEE Standard (10/12/2003)

Announcement Complements This Week's Royalty-Free Statements from Other Leaders in UWB Multi-Band OFDM Technology Including Texas Instruments

Staccato Communications today reinforced its commitment to enabling high-volume Ultra Wideband (UWB) markets by filing a letter assuring both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Multi-Band OFDM Alliance (MBOA) that access to Staccato's essential patents will be available on a royalty-free basis.

Staccato Communications is part of the IEEE committee leadership as well as a founding member of the MBOA and as such, is committed to accelerating the delivery of UWB products to the marketplace. UWB is a high-speed, short-range wireless technology that is ideal for transferring broadband digital content between PCs and PC peripherals, and devices in different entertainment clusters in the home, such as digital video recorders, set-top boxes, and televisions.

"With the understanding that broad success of standards needs to be free of unreasonable intellectual property (IP) and royalty claims, MBOA members have agreed to the IEEE policy and to provide, under Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) terms any IP adopted as part of the standard specification," said Roberto Aiello, CEO of Staccato Communications. "This week, numerous royalty-free announcements were issued, which go above and beyond the RAND statements already filed and will help catalyze and further enable the various markets by ensuring global access to technology."

Multi-Band OFDM is the leading proposal in the IEEE 802.15.3a standards activities and is the best technical solution, according to the more than 40 MBOA member companies who are now developing silicon solutions and end-user products based upon this approach. In light of achieving time-to-market requirements as set forth by the consumer electronics industry, the MBOA is working in parallel with the IEEE to ensure no delays in products. Specification 1.0 will be released in May 2004 with end-user product integration in early 2005 to support consumer product shipments for holiday season 2005.

Over the past several months, IEEE committee members have shown growing support for the MB-OFDM proposal, and one of the fundamental outstanding issues has been the desire to have formal filings with the IEEE declaring royalty-free access to essential patents of the technology.

"During the past decade, we have witnessed technologies encumbered by royalties as having slower market adoption and stifled market penetration," said Mark Fidler, Hewlett-Packard Sr. Engineering Scientist and WiMedia Board Member. "We don't want to see the same happen to UWB. Hewlett-Packard is an active member of the Multi-Band OFDM Alliance, because the technology is an excellent solution for high-speed wireless communications. The announcements on zero-royalty licensing from Staccato and other leading MB-OFDM authors will ensure the successful adoption of this technology."

www.staccatocommunications.com
www.multibandofdm.org