TeleCommunication Systems Adds 14 U.S. Patents

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TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (TCS), a world leader in secure and highly reliable wireless communication technology, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued twelve new patents to TCS. TCS also purchased two U.S. patents, bringing the second quarter total to 14 additional U.S. patents, as well as nine foreign patents. In the quarter, TCS filed for 16 U.S. patents. Thus, as of June 30, the total number of patents issued worldwide in the portfolio was 418, with more than 300 patent applications pending.

News Facts:

The 14 recently added U.S. patents describe innovations in several key communications categories, including:

Public Safety:  Prank calls to an emergency call center can be a serious threat to public safety and range in levels of severity. The severity of a prank can range from a young child's repeated attempt to hear a voice at the other end of the line to an intentional distraction to divert law enforcement away from ongoing criminal activity, such as drug dealing. All prank calls waste taxpayers money, expend critical resources unnecessarily, and can potentially lead to loss of life or property in the course of emergency response. With already over-burdened resources, emergency call centers require a means to determine if an in-coming call is a valid call for help or a prank. The recently issued "Index of Suspicion Determination for Communications Request" patent (U.S. 8,983,047) describes techniques to assess and determine an index rating of the likelihood that an incoming call is a prank based upon criteria such as the location of the device relative to the event, the known call history of the device, and other historical data.

Location: The proliferation of smart phones has resulted in the creation of more than a million applications, ranging from navigation and mapping, to social networking, banking, and music. When invoked, many of these apps place a request to the network for device location and device "presence," an indication that the device is on the wireless network and able to receive calls or data.. Both location and presence services can be message intensive on wireless networks.  The recently issued "Location Derived Presence Information" patent (U.S. 8,983,048) is the fourth issued patent in a family of TCS patents that resulted from a TCS carrier customer's request for innovative ways to reduce network traffic. The patent describes methods for providing both device presence and location information as a result of just one location request.

GIS/Mapping:  Traditional mapping and navigation applications utilized on smartphones require multiple image tiles to render the map data for the application. Retrieving these map tiles from a central server used for a nationwide navigation service can create data bottlenecks and application lag.  Many navigation routes will revisit route segments as the user's location changes during the course of traversing the map route, resulting in the application sending repeated and unnecessary requests for the same image tiles to update the map. The recently issued "Image Tile Server" patent (U.S. 9,026,549) overcomes this problem by using an intermediate image tile server that caches recently viewed image tiles. A cached copy of the image tile allows for faster retrieval and an improved user experience. 

The remaining 11 U.S. patents issued in the period are: Tiled Map Display on a Wireless Device (U.S. 9,041,744); System and Method for Positioning in Configured Environments (U.S. 7,511,662); System and Method for Positioning in Configured Environments (U.S. 7,916,074); Web Gateway Multi-Carrier Support (U.S. 9,002,951); End-to-End Logic Tracing of Complex Call Flows in a Distributed Call System (U.S. 9,042,522); System for Efficiently Handling Cryptographic Messages Containing Nonce Values in a Wireless Connectionless Environment (U.S. 9,071,438); Ingress/Egress Call Module (U.S. 9,008,612); Wireless Emergency Services Protocols Translator Between ANSI-41 and VOIP Emergency Services Protocols (U.S. 9,001,719); Transmitter Augmented Radar/Laser Detection Using Local Mobile Network Within a Wide Area Network (U.S. 9,002,347); First Responder Wireless Emergency Alerting with Automatic Callback and Location Triggering (U.S. 8,970,366); Authentication via Motion of Wireless Device Movement patent (U.S. 8,984,591).

TCS Chairman, President and CEO Maurice B. Tose said: "TCS continues to build expertise and intellectual property that covers a number of key areas important to wireless and the connected ecosystems of the future.  This patent portfolio protects our products, provides opportunities for royalties, and assists us in defending claims against our products directly and under indemnification provisions of contracts with major customers."

About TeleCommunication Systems, Inc.

TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (TCS), headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, is a world leader in secure and highly reliable wireless communications. Our patented solutions, global presence, operational support and engineering talent enable 9-1-1, commercial location-based services and deployable wireless infrastructure; cybersecurity; defense and aerospace components; and applications for mobile location-based services and messaging. Our principal customers are wireless network operators, defense and public safety government agencies, and Fortune 150 enterprises requiring high reliability and security. Learn more at www.telecomsys.com.