Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Near-Field Communication (NFC) - Technology, Patent and Competitor Landscape Report - Key players, innovators and industry analysis


NEW YORK, Dec. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue:

Near-Field Communication (NFC) - Technology, Patent and Competitor Landscape Report - Key players, innovators and industry analysis

NFC is a technical standard established by the NFC Forum through the various standards established in 2004 to standardize the communication, electromagnetic as well as physical characteristics of NFC for interoperability and development perspectives. There is no publicly available patent repository that clearly lays out the 'essential patents' to enable use of the NFC technology, or the patents on the application side that leverage the 'essential patents' to deliver various applications to consumers.
As companies firm up their NFC business strategies in light of competition, the firms will also like to have strong visibility into the competitive IP strategy/IP landscape in the NFC area. This report on NFC helps answer the pertinent questions a firm may have:-
• A comprehensive listing of all the probably essential patents based on NFC standards ISO/IEC 14443, ECMA-340 and ECMA-352. (patents whose technology is relevant to the standard and whose priority date is before 2004)
• The various patents that leverage the NFC standard to deliver the various applications to consumers
• Those patents that are apparent improvements to the standard/essential patents (being defined as the patents whose priority date is after the NFC forum of 2004)
• The hardware related patents that consist of constructional part of the transmitter/receiver antenna or coil involved in NFC communication
This data was collated by the Dolcera team through deep analysis of over 6000 patents obtained through a combination of key words and IPC/ECLA codes in the Thomson Innovation database. The Dolcera experts went through these patents to identify about 1500 patents relevant to the NFC technology which were then each analyzed in deeper detail. The detailed and thorough reading of patents was done to classify the patents into probably essential patents, application patents and the patents that improve on the standard (herein referred to as standards based).
This is the first report of its kind and is now available as a publication from the Dolcera Reports umbrella and provides an extensive analysis and market appraisal of the commercial opportunities open to players in the rapidly expanding Near-Field Communication market. The report has been compiled by following best of breed patent analysis practices by a team of experts. The analysis method allows sufficient time by the experts to go through the patents before they are classified into each of the above mentioned categories.
The final report is delivered using a Web2.0 platform. The underlying assumptions of how patents are classified is clearly and transparently laid out - which means that a customer can clearly read the underlying logic of why Dolcera experts believe a patent is probably essential. The entire platform through which the report is presented is extremely flexible in that it allows one to alter the classification of documents if their underlying assumptions are different from the experts.
System Description
Near field communication or NFC is short-range wireless technology, operating at a distance of 10 cm or less. NFC operates at 13.56 MHz with data rate ranging from 106 kbit/s to 848 kbit/s. Most of the RF energy is concentrated in the allowed 14 kHz bandwidth range, but the full spectral envelope may be as wide as 1.8 MHz when using ASK modulation.NFC architecture is composed of an initiator and a target, where the initiator actively generates an RF field that can power a passive target. For such reason, NFC targets can have very simple form factors such as tags, stickers, key fobs, or cards that do not require battery, even though NFC peer-to-peer communication is also possible (i.e. both devices are powered).NFC employs two different coding to transfer data: if an active device transfers data at 106 kbit/s, a modified Miller coding with 100% modulation is used; in all other cases Manchester coding is used with a modulation ratio of 10%.NFC devices are able to receive and transmit data at the same time. Thus, they need to check the radio frequency field and can detect a collision if the received signal matches the transmitted signal's modulated frequency band.1. Executive summary2. Introduction to NFC 2.1.
System Description
2.2. Operating Modes2.3. Applications3. Taxonomy for near field communication4. Top cited patents for NFC5. Key findings5.1. Major players in NFC technology5.2. IP activity in NFC technology5.2.1. Priority year wise5.2.2. Publication year wise5.3. Geographic distribution of IP activity in NFC5.4. Key NFC patents5.5. Major player analysis5.5.1. Top assignee - Technology distribution5.6. Standards based analysis5.6.1. Top assignee - Standards based5.6.2. Filing trend - Standards based5.7. Probably essential patent analysis5.7.1. Top assignee - Probably essential5.7.2. Filing trend - Probably essential5.8. Application based analysis5.8.1. Top assignee - Application based5.8.2. Filing trend - Application based5.8.3. Top assignee - Mobile based data transfer applications5.8.4. Top assignee - Application based data transfer5.9. Analysis of NFC related hardware5.9.1. Filing trend – Hardware5.9.2. Top assignee - Hardware6. Appendix: Search strategy6.1. Patent classes6.2. Concept table6.3. Thomson Innovation search7. Appendix B: Sample analysis7.1. Application based categorization flowchart7.2. Standard based categorization flowchart7.3. Sample categorization
Table of figures
Figure 1: Inductive coupling
Figure 2: Modes of operation
Figure 3: Taxonomy of all the relevant patents
Figure 4: Taxonomy - NFC standards
Figure 5: Major players according to number of patents
Figure 6: Priority year wise IP activity
Figure 7: Publication year wise IP activity
Figure 8: Geographical distribution
Figure 9: Top cited patents
Figure 10: Top assignee - Technology distribution
Figure 11: Top assignee - Standards
Figure 12: Filing trend - Standards based
Figure 13: Top assignee - Probably essential
Figure 14: Filing trend - Probably essential
Figure 15: Top assignee - Application based
Figure 16: Filing trend - Application based
Figure 17: Top assignee - Mobile based data transfer applications
Figure 18: Top assignee - Application based - Data transfer
Figure 19: Filing trend – Hardware
Figure 20: Top assignee - Hardware
Figure 21: Application based categorization flowchart
Figure 22: Standard based categorization flowchart
List of Tables
Table 1: Top cited patents for NFCTable 2: Patent class codesTable 3: Concept tableTable 4: Thomson Innovation search
Companies Mentioned
Sony Corp, Panasonic, Toshiba, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, ST Microelectronics, NXP BV, Broadcom, Hitachi, NEC, ZTE, Fujitsu, Canon, Research In Motion, Nippon Telegraph & Telephone
To order this report:Wireless Technology IndustryNear-Field Communication (NFC) - Technology, Patent and Competitor Landscape Report - Key players, innovators and industry analysis
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Nicolas Bombourg
Reportlinker
Email: nbo@reportlinker.com
US: (805)652-2626
Intl: +1 805-652-2626

Visa Add's $1.565 Billion to their "Litigation Escrow Account"

English: Visa logo
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SAN FRANCISCODec. 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) today announced it had decided to deposit $1.565 billion(the "Loss Funds") into the litigation escrow account previously established under the Company's retrospective responsibility plan (the "Plan").  Under the terms of the Plan, when the Company funds the litigation escrow account, the value of the Company's Class B shares – which are held exclusively by U.S. financial institutions and their affiliates and successors – is correspondingly adjusted via a reduction in the Class B shareholders' as-converted share count. This has the same effect on earnings per share as repurchasing the Company's class A common stock, by reducing the as-converted class B common stock share count. The Company will make this deposit by using funds previously allocated to its current $2 billion class A repurchase program, which was announced on July 27 and October 26, 2011, and which will exhaust all funds available under that program. The deposit of the Loss Funds will be conducted in accordance with the Company's certificate of incorporation currently in effect. 


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