Key Patent in the Case between Commil USA LLC and Cisco Systems

The patent in question is U.S. Patent No. 6,430,395: “Wireless private branch exchange and communicating between mobile units and base stations”

This patent was at the heart of the Federal Circuit case between Commil USA LLC and Cisco Systems that I discussed last week. In this post, I will examine the claims in greater detail.

The first part of the first claim reads as follows:

“1. In a wireless communication system comprising at least two Base Stations, at least one Switch in communication with the Base Stations, a method of communicating between mobile units and the Base Stations comprising:”

This introductory claim of the patent helps set the context for the invention. A wireless communication system refers to some organization of equipment or devices that facilitates communication between two parties over the air that does not require wires. A “Base Station” provides the connection between mobile phones and the wider telephone network. This area-specific term helps narrow down the coverage area of the patent to wireless communication involving mobile phones in some wireless network. The switch serves as a “controller” and allows the devices to connect to the wireless communication system.

Here is the second part:

           dividing a short-range communication protocol into a low-level protocol for performing tasks that require accurate time synchronization and a high-level protocol which does not require accurate time synchronization; and

The previous paragraph says that there are two protocols simultaneously operating in order to facilitate communication, a low-level protocol and a high-level. The low-level protocol looks to be for shorter-distance communication that needs accurate time information, while the high-level protocol allows for other tasks that do not require that time synchronization.

            for each connection of a mobile unit with a Base Station, running an instance of the low-level protocol at the Base Station connected with the mobile unit and running an instance of the high-level protocol at the Switch.

This part of the claim sets up how the Base Station and Switch interact with each other. The mobile device connects to the Base Station that is running the time-dependent low-level protocol along with the high-level protocol at the Switch.

The remaining eleven claims are methods that further extend these fundamental functionalities described above, specifically how such a wireless communication system would go about facilitating the communication between mobile units and base stations.