
From telecom-request@delta.eecs.nwu.edu  Tue Aug 22 17:58:52 1995
by
1995
17:58:52 -0400
telecomlist-outbound; Tue, 22 Aug 1995 14:44:34 -0500
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To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 22 Aug 95 14:44:00 CDT    Volume 15 : Issue 353

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    TRW Versus Inmarsat - Patent Wars in Outer Space (PATNEWS via M. 
Solomon)
    4th Int'l. Conference on Spoken Language Processing '96 (Jim 
Polikoff)
    New Area Code Test Numbers (Phillip M. Dampier)
    Book Review: "Educator's Internet Companion" by Giagnocavo (Rob 
Slade)

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----------------------------------------------------------------------



Forwarded FYI to the Digest:

  To: patents@world.std.com

   One of the reasons that the professional IP community has been so
apathetic to the problem of software prior art is that for the big
boys, software patent lawsuits are more of a nuisance than anything
else (and even then, when you lose you often can win, if you look at
Microsoft's final arrangements with Stac and Wang).  As big as a
million dollars maybe to the rest of us, in some circles it isn't that
much.

   A billion dollars, well that's big bucks to pretty much everyone,
including two outer space companies, TRW and Inmarsat, amounts
currently at stake over a patent with a very curious history for which
the fat lady has yet to sing.  It's hard to be apathetic to billion
dollar actions.

   Last May, I had sent an IPNS news item on a patent TRW was seeking
dealing with satellite configurations in medium Earth orbit, based on
an article I had seen in the London Financial Times.  TRW had been
suggesting in the space community that it's patent was broad enough to
prohibit anyone else from using medium Earth orbit's for satellite
systems.  While not many of us are trying to do so, one other company
was doing so, Inmarsat.  Both TRW and Inmarsat are spending billions
to establish satellite telephone constellations, big stakes.

   Coincidently, the day after I sent out that news item, the patent
issued, kind of.  The "kind of" was that for awhile that day the
patent was prepared to be issued, and made it to the PTO's patent text
database long enough for me to download the text and mail it out as a
news item, only for the patent to be retracted by the Patent Office
and therefore never formally issued (TRW claimed to know of only two
other such instances in the past 100 years).

   The action puzzled many.  "All I can say is that the Patent Office
told us they wanted more time to review their internal quality control
methods", one TRW spokesman said. "We had expected to receive the
patent certificates on May 16, as scheduled.  It was not until that
date that we were told otherwise".  I quess that it is rare that a
patent gets this far before being pulled.

   "It is our responsibility to not knowingly issue an invalid claim",
said Stephen Kunin, the Patent Office's deputy assistant commissioner
for patent policy and projects.  "If, on internal review, it comes to
our attention that we may have a claim that should not go out, and we
have strong evidence that this is the case, we try to prevent it from
going out. TRW will most certainly be given an opportunity to get the
case ship shape.  They may end up with the claims they thought they
would get.  From our standpoint of administering the law, we want to
be sure we have done the job we are paid to do", Kunin said.

   I suspect Inmarsat must have some good lobbyists and pulled a few
strings [The timing of the above events, with the patent temporarily
issuing, is in conflict with the timing of an internal review catching
the patent in time].  As it should, and should be able to, given that
Inmarsat is investing $2.6 billion in its satellite telephone
constellation system that will compete with TRW's Odyssey.  As TRW was
claiming that their patents would stop Inmarsat from deploying its
satellites, Inmarsat must have done something to get the PTO to
reconsider (though Inmarsat denies doing anything), especially given
skepticism many in the space industry have about satellite orbit
patents in general.  Earlier in the year, TRW had said it would sue
Inmarsat once the patents issued.

   TRW was notified in April that their patents were to be awarded,
and due to TRW press releases, the PTO had been repeatedly contacted
by members of the space industry to find out what was up.  As Olof
Lundberg, CEO of the Inmarsat project stated, "We have always been of
the view that the concept of using intermediate circular orbits in
connection with global mobile satellite communications has been known
for decades and that any patent obtained by TRW for this general
concept would be of questionable validity".

   The rivalry between the two companies is intense. Last June, TRW
petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to deny the
application of Comsat Corp.  for authority to participate in the
purchase of facilities of Inmarsat-P, the proposed private off-shot of
Inmarsat. Comsat is the US signatory to Intelsat.

   Last month, TRW was awarded one patent, 5,433,726.  Interestingly,
the issued patent had 35 claims, while the original version that was
reconsidered had 51 claims.  TRW shortly thereafter warned Inmarsat
that it could be infringing TRW's patent.  According to Bruce Gerding,
TRW vice president and managing director of the company's Odyssey
program, "The broad scope of its coverage poses a major concern for
any aspiring imitators in the field of space-based personal
communications systems.  We believe that any imitator would have
difficulty in launching a commercially viable medium Earth orbit
system without infringing our patent".

   Inmarsat's Lundberg countered, "We are certainly not in the
business of infringing other people's patents.  We cannot believe that
any patent office would issue patents that are so broad that they
cover orbits and the general ability to communicate through
satellites.  Our detailed system design is quite different from our
competitor's."

   According to industry analysts, TRW has the fewest partners and the
least capital and is least likely to get its system off the ground,
and suspect TRW will use the patent offensively to buy time and raise
more resources.  (Other than Inmarsat, TRW also is competing with two
low Earth orbit ventures which all will be targeting the personal
communication systems market).

   Here are some of the details of the patent:

5433726
Medium-earth-altitude satellite-based cellular telecommunications system

ABSTRACT
    A satellite-based cellular telecommunications system employing a
constellation of telecommunications satellites in medium earth orbit to
provide multibeam radio frequency (rf) communications links for 
worldwide
cellular telephone service with a minimum number of satellites. The
telecommunications satellites are placed in a plurality of inclined 
orbits
about the earth at an altitude of between approximately 5600 and 10,000
nautical miles. The characteristics of the orbits, such as the number of
orbits, the inclination of each orbit, the number of satellites in each
orbit and the altitude of the satellites, are tailored to maximize the
coverage area of the satellites and their related line-of-sight 
elevation
angles, while minimizing propagation time delays, the number of
beam-to-beam and satellite-to-satellite handovers, and the total number 
of
satellites. The present invention also includes several additional
features which essentially eliminate beam-to-beam and
satellite-to-satellite handovers, thus dramatically reducing the
likelihood of dropouts. between the plug and the anchor to prevent the
plug from entering the opening in the vessel.

CLAIM ONE
    A method of providing medium-earth-orbit satellite-based 
communications
between low-power mobile handsets having an omni-directional antenna and 
a
gateway station through a satellite forming part of a satellite
constellation, comprising the steps of:

 launching a plurality of satellites to an orbiting altitude between 
5600
    and 10,000 nautical miles, wherein at least one satellite has a 
reduced
    antenna field of view (FOV) less than full earth coverage;

 orienting said satellites in a plurality of orbital planes which are
    inclined at a predetermined inclination angle with respect to the
    equatorial plane of the earth;

 receiving, by at least one of said satellites, radio frequency (RF) 
signals
    from a plurality of mobile handsets which transmit said RF signals 
using
    their omni-directional antennas; and

 overlapping a portion of a coverage region of a departing satellite 
with a
    portion of a coverage region of an arriving satellite, including
    assignment means having a predetermined criterion of assignment that 
calls
    placed to or from a user located within the coverage overlap region 
are
    assigned to said arriving satellite.

Interestingly, the prior art cited includes 59 US patents, 8 foreign
patents, and 36 literature references, which is a pretty good amount
compared to most other patents, though no NASA or DoD technical
reports were cited.  I am curious to see what prior art will be dug up
if the patent is ever challenged.

   In the end, all of this will end up in the courts.  Stay tuned, the
fireworks should be great.  As a bit of advice to the PTO, there is a
pending biotech patent that will cause a global morality outroar when
it is issues.  I suggest you crank up the internal reviews, and save
yourself a massive headache.


Greg Aharonian   Internet Patent News Service
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA, 02178
617-489-3727,  patents@world.std.com
(for info on free subscription, send 'help' to   patents@world.std.com )
(for prior art search services info, send 'prior' to 
patents@world.std.com )
(for WWW patent searching, try  
http://sunsite.unc.edu/patents/intropat.html )

------------------------------



         Fourth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing
                            October 3-6, 1996
                         Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel
                           Philadelphia, PA, USA
 
          __________ICSLP 96 Organizers___________
 
            H. Timothy Bunnell, Chair
            Richard A. Foulds, Vice-Chair
            Applied Science & Engineering Laboratories
            Wilmington, DE, USA
                  
       ICSLP unites researchers, developers, and clinicians for an 
exchange
       on a wide variety of topics related to the spoken language 
processing
       of humans and machines. Conference presentations range from basic
       acoustic phonetic research to clinically oriented speech training
       devices to speech-based natural language interfaces for man-
machine
       interaction.  ICSLP 96 will feature technical sessions of both 
oral
       and poster format, plenary talks, commercial exhibits, and daily
       special sessions. In addition, satellite workshops will be held 
in
       conjunction with the conference in the areas of interactive voice
       technology, spoken dialogue, speech databases and speech I/O, and
       gestures and speech. A new emphasis for ICSLP 96 will be on the
       clinical applications of speech technology, including the use of
       speech technology based applications for persons with 
disabilities.


   _________________________Conference 
Update_________________________8/10/95

      Dates to Note: 

        January 15, 1996 - Paper abstracts due for review
        March 15, 1996  - Acceptance notification
        May 1, 1996  - Deadline for papers (camera-ready, 4 pages)


      Prospective authors are invited to submit papers relevant to 
spoken
      language processing in any of the conference Technical Areas. 
      Abstracts of proposed papers must be received by the ICSLP 96
      Organizing Committee no later than January 15, 1996. Papers will 
be
      selected by the ICSLP 96 Technical Program Committee and assigned 
for
      presentation in poster or oral format. English is the working 
language
      for the conference. Submission of an abstract implies a commitment 
to
      submit a four page, camera-ready version of the paper and to 
present
      the paper in either an oral or poster session if the abstract is
      accepted. Participants will be expected to pay their own 
registration
      fees, travel, and accommodations for ICSLP 96.

    _____________________Submission of
Abstracts____________________________           
      Abstracts must be received by the ICSLP 96 Organizing Committee no
      later than January 15, 1996. Abstracts may be submitted either by 
post
      or by e-mail following these guidelines:

       + One page, 400 word maximum
       + Technical Area(s) indicated in order of preference 
      using the codes (A - X) below.
       + Title of the proposed paper clearly indicated
        + Preference for paper or poster clearly indicated
       + If sent by post, submit four (4) copies of the abstract
       + If sent by e-mail, use plain text (ASCII) format only

      Each abstract must also include the following contact information:

       + Author name(s)*  
       + Postal mailing address
       + Phone number 
       + Fax number
       + E-mail address

      E-mailed abstracts will be acknowledged by e-mail within 48 
      hours of submission. If you do not receive e-mail 
      confirmation, we have not received your abstract! Please 
      check the e-mail address and resubmit. Please do not e-mail 
      multiple copies for any other reason.

     *Please be sure that the primary contact person is noted if it is 
      someone other than the First Author.

     Mail or send abstracts to:

        ICSLP 96
       Applied Science & Engineering Laboratories
        A.I. duPont Institute
        P.O. Box 269
        Wilmington, DE 19899
        E-mail: ICSLP-abstract@asel.udel.edu

 ________________________Technical 
Areas___________________________________
         
  A. Production of spoken language     
  B. Perception of spoken language
  C. Robust speech modeling and speech enhancement 
  D. Speech coding and transmission
  E. Automatic speech recognition
  F. Spoken language processing for special populations
  G. Phonetics and phonology
  H. Spoken discourse analysis/synthesis
  I. Synthesis of spoken language
  J. Applications for people with speech/language/hearing disorders
  K. Databases and standards for speech technology
  L. Prosody of spoken language
  M. Speech analysis and parameterization
  N. Spoken language acquisition/learning
  O. Integrating spoken language and natural language processing
  P. Hardware for speech processing
  Q. Neural networks and stochastic modeling of spoken language
  R. Dialects and speaking styles
  S. Instructional technology for spoken language
  T. Speaker/language identification and verification
  U. Human factors and assessment in spoken language applications
  V. Spoken language dialogue and conversation
  W. Gesture and Multimodal Spoken Language Processing
  X. Other

 ________________________Satellite Workshops___________________________

 The following Satellite Workshops will be held immediately before or
 after the ICSLP 96 conference.

 1. IVTTA -

 The 3rd IEEE workshop on Interactive Voice Technology for
 Telecommunications Applications (IVTTA) will be held at the AT&T
 Learning Center, Basking Ridge, New Jersey, from September 30 -
 October 1, 1996. The IVTTA workshop brings together applications
 researchers planning to conduct or who have recently conducted field
 trials of new applications of speech technologies.  Due to workshop
 facility constraints, attendance will be limited primarily to
 contributors. For further information about the workshop, contact:

     Dr. Murray Spiegel
     Bellcore
      445 South Street
      Morristown, NJ, USA

_
                                                               

  e-mail: spiegel@bellcore.com
      Phone:  1-201-829-4519; Fax: 1-201-829-5963

 Submit abstracts (400 words, maximum 1 page) before April 1, 1996 to:

      Dr. David Roe
      IEEE IVTTA `96
      AT&T Bell Laboratories, Room 2D-533
      Murray Hill, NJ 07974
      e-mail: roe@hogpb.att.com
            Phone:  908 582-2548; Fax: 908 582-3306

 2. ISSD-96

 The 1996 International Symposium on Spoken Dialogue (ISSD-96) will be
 held on October 2 and 3 at the venue of ICSLP 96. It is intended to be
 a forum of interdisciplinary exchange between researchers working on
 spoken dialogues from various points of view. The first day is devoted
 to invited lectures followed by sessions of both invited and
 contributed papers, which will be continued on the second day as
 special sessions of ICSLP 96. Papers submitted to ICSLP 96 (Technical
 Areas H,L,O,U,&V) may be selected for presentation at the
 symposium. For further information about the symposium, contact:

     Prof. Hiroya Fujisaki, Chairman, ISSD-96
     Dept. of Applied Electronics
      Science University of Tokyo
      2641 Yamazaki, Noda, 278 Japan
      e-mail: fujisaki@te.noda.sut.ad.jp
      Phone:  +81-471-23-4327; Fax: +81-471-22-9195

 3. COCOSDA Workshop 96

 COCOSDA Workshop 96 will be held on Monday, October 7 at the Wyndham
 Franklin Plaza Hotel. The International Coordinating Committee on
 Speech Databases and Speech I/O Systems Assessment (COCOSDA) has been
 established to promote international cooperation in the fundamental
 areas of Spoken Language Engineering. Previous meetings have taken
 place in Banff 1992, Berlin 1993, Yokohama 1994 and Madrid
 1995. Program and registration information for COCOSDA 96 will be
 forthcoming in later announcements.  For more information about
 COCOSDA, consult the Web Page at http://www.itl.atr.co.jp/cocosda.

 4. Workshop on Gesture and Speech

 The Applied Science and Engineering Laboratories of the University of
 Delaware will host a Workshop on Multimodal use of Gesture and Speech
 October 7 - 8, 1996. This Workshop will consider the integration of
 gesture and spoken language in intelligent human/computer interfaces,
 in advanced assisitve technology for individuals with disabilities, in
 telemanipulation and robotics systems, and in human
 conversation. Gestures including hand postures, dynamic arm movements,
 facial expression, and eye gaze will be considered along with more
 traditional lip shapes and handwriting movements. For further
 information, contact:

  Dr. Lynn Messing
  A. I. duPont Institute
  P.O. Box 269
  Wilmington, DE 19899
  e-mail:  messing@asel.udel.edu
  Phone:   +1 302 651 6830; Fax: +1-302-651-6895


  _____________Sponsoring and Cooperating Organizations_________________

  The Acoustical Society of America
  American Speech and Hearing Association (Pending)
  The Acoustical Society of Japan
  Canadian Acoustical Association
  European Speech Communication Association
  IEEE Signal Processing Society
  International Phonetic Association
  Others - contact ICSLP 96. 

 ______________For more information, contact____________________________

  ICSLP 96
  Applied Science & Engineering Laboratories
  A.I. duPont Institute
  P.O. Box 269
  Wilmington, DE 19899
  Phone: +1 302 651 6830
  TDD: +1 302 651 6834
  Fax: +1 302 651 6895
  Email: ICSLP96@asel.udel.edu
  WWW: http://www.asel.udel.edu/speech/icslp.html
  FTP: zeppo.asel.udel.edu:pub/ICSLP

 A two-page PostScript format copy of the most recent Conference
 Announcement and Call for Papers can also be obtained by anonyomus
 ftp. Connect to host zeppo.asel.udel.edu, cd to directory pub/ICSLP96,
 and get call.ps.Z in binary mode. The file must be uncompressed with a
 unix compatable uncompress program before being printed. This plain
 text version of the announcement is located in the same directory as
 file call.txt


 _______________________International Advisory Board_______________

      Hiroya Fujisaki
      Science University of Tokyo
      Tokyo, Japan

 Jens Blauert    John Ohala
 Ruhr-Universitat Bochum   University of California
 Bochum, Germany    Berkeley, CA, USA

 Anne Cutler           Lawrence Rabiner
 Max Planck Institute for                AT&T Bell Labs
 Psycholinguistics                       Murray Hill, NJ, USA
 Nijmegen, The Netherlands

 Gunnar Fant     Katsuhiko Shirai
 Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)  Waseda University
 Stockholm, Sweden    Tokyo, Japan

 John Laver     Kenneth Stevens
        Humanities Research Board of   Massachusetts Institute  
 the British Academy    of Technology
 Edinburgh, Scotland    Cambridge, MA, USA

 Joseph Mariani     Yoh'ichi Tohkura
 LIMSI-CNRS     ATR Human Information 
 Orsay, France      Processing Research Lab
      Kyoto, Japan

 J. Bruce Millar                         Victor Zue
 Australian National University          Massachusetts Institute 
  Canberra, Australia    of Technology
      Cambridge, MA, USA


------------------------------



US West issued a press release on August 17th that included supposedly
"toll-free" test numbers for reaching new area codes.  These are
generally used by people who are concerned whether their PBX's have
been updated sufficiently to allow calls to new area codes.  I can't
be certain these are toll-free, but calling them gets you what sounds
like a standard intercept.

State     Old AC  New AC    Test Number
=======================================================================
Alabama    205     334      (334) 223-0600
Arizona    602     520      (520) 782-0100
Colorado   303     970      (970) 241-0022
Georgia    404     770      (770) 666-9999
Oregon     503     541      (541) 334-0057 or 276-0192  (*)
Texas      713     281      (281) 792-8378
Washington 206     360      (360) 532-0023 or 576-0023

(*) - Effective November 5, 1995


Phillip M. Dampier                 +  Fidonet: 1:2613/225        
3176 Elmwood Avenue                +  E-Mail:  philjohn@eznet.net
Rochester, New York 14618-2096     +  Faxes:   +1 716 461 3169   
**   PhilJohn Home Page:  http://roch0.eznet.net/~philjohn  **   
**   Rochester Free-Net:  http://www.vivanet.com/freenet    **   

------------------------------



BKEDINCM.RVW   950529
 
%A   Gregory Giagnocavo jgg@wentworth.com
%A   Tim McLain
%A   Vince DiStefano
%A   Chris Noonan Sturm cnsturm@wentworth.com
%C   1866 Colonial Village Lane, PO Box 10488, Landcaster, PA   17605-
0488
%D   1995
%G   0-932577-10-5
%I   Wentworth Worldwide Media, Inc.
%O   U$39.99/C$53.99 800-638-1639 fax 717-393-5752 connect@wentworth.com
%P   271
%T   "Educator's Internet Companion"
"Educator's Internet Companion", Gregory Giagnocavo, 1995, 0-932577-10-
5,
U$39.99/C$53.99
 
The video which accompanies this book (little more than an ad for
Internet access -- and "Classroom Connect") states at one point that
the Internet's educational resources are almost uncharted.  This is
true only in comparison to the overexposure that other topics get.
"Educator's Internet Companion" is, too, almost a sampler of other
Wentworth products.  Still, it is worth consideration for some
practical ideas and a quick, easy-to-follow resource guide.
 
The lesson plans of chapter one are quite terse and provide more
suggestions and sites than usable curriculum.  Still, the thirty
outlines do cover a range of topics and activities (albeit they rely
heavily on Gopher, and World Wide Web).  The idea of "guided" tours
through menu-driven systems is odd, but the Internet can be daunting
initially.  The lists of Gopher, telnet, ftp, and WWW sites, as well
as mailing lists and newsgroups, are brief, but to the point and easy
to read.  A discussion of funding sources is limited in specifics to
the United States, but possibly extremely helpful there.  A series of
appendices cover, concisely, Internet concepts and tools, acceptable
use policies, and the major commercial online services.
 
Wentworth seems to be quite serious about the educational market, and 
their
offerings are practical in both content and prices.
 
copyright Robert M. Slade, 1995   BKEDINCM.RVW   950529. Distribution
permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Rob Slade's 
book
reviews are a regular feature in the Digest.  
 

Vancouver        roberts@decus.ca         | "If a train station
Institute for    Robert_Slade@sfu.ca      |  is where a train
Research into    rslade@cyberstore.ca     |  stops, what happens
User             Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca |  at a workstation?"
Security         Canada V7K 2G6           | Frederick Wheeler

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V15 #353
******************************

                                                                                             
