MDS America
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| MDS America, Inc. | |
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| Type | Corporation |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters |  Stuart, Florida, USA |
| Key people | Kirk Kirkpatrick |
| Industry | Telecommunication Manufacturing |
| Products | Direct broadcast television, Internet |
| Employees | 20 |
| Parent | Al Fawares Holding |
| Subsidiaries | MDS Operations |
| Website | [1] |
MDS America, Inc (MDSA) is a startup wireless Internet and wireless cable TV technology provider based in Stuart, Florida. MDS America was the primary party responsible for the invalidation of Northpoint Technology Inc's patents having to do with terrestrial rebroadcast of satellite signals.[1]
MDS Operations, an affiliated company, participated in recent auctions in 2005 and 2006 held by the FCC of the frequency band of 12.2 - 12.7 GHz, which it christened MVDDS.[2]
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[edit] Technology
The receiver of MDSA's system uses a technology that is patented under US patent number 7,286,795. [3]
The MVDDS system uses similar spectrum to a DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite) system, and is capable of operating at the same frequencies without interference. The MDSA two-way system competes against satellite internet access; the shorter round trip distance of only a few hundred kilometers reduces the latency compared with a geostationary satellite's 44,000 mile 250ms latency. The MDSA system has the disadvantage of requiring infrastructure closer to the user - a satellite can cover a significant proportion of the country, instead of the maximum 200km radius of an MDSA base station. However since the MDSA signal can be sectorized, MDSA's bandwidth, unlike that of satellite, can be multiplied in most geographical areas. For video distribution, this means that local channels and local advertising can be injected into the signal, unlike with DBS satellite systems.
[edit] Legal History
MDSA was sued by Northpoint Technology Ltd., [4] on the grounds of patent infringement (US Patents #5,761,605 and #6,169,878.) MDSA contended that the patents that Northpoint had been granted were invalid since the patents essentially covered attributes of a satellite dish and Northpoint had not invented satellite dishes. In 2004, a jury in Federal Court in Ft. Pierce, Florida invalidated both asserted Northpoint patents on four separate grounds [5]. This court case and subsequent invalidation of Northpoint's patents opened the way for the auctioning of MVDDS spectrum. [6]
[edit] Appeal
The above case was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. On June 28, 2005, the court AFFIRMED the findings of the lower court permanently invalidating both patents. [7] [8]
[edit] Management
- Kirk Kirkpatrick: Founder, President, and CEO
- Peter Blond: Exec. Vice President and COO
- Grigory Kholodkov: Chief Engineer MDSA
- Sharif Rabah: Vice President, Sales and Marketing
- Allen Quinn: Vice President, Operations
- Gopiballava Flaherty: CIO
