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White Plains firm gives AT&T static Partners sue telecom giant, claim patent infringement A partnership based in White Plains has sued AT&T Corp., accusing the telecom giant of infringing on the partners’ patent for a technology platform to deliver telephone, video, data and Internet signals through a single bundled system. C-Cation Inc. says in court papers that its patent was infringed on by AT&T and its AT&T Broadband L.L.C. unit when they developed and began marketing two-way cable TV service over the past three years, first as LightWire and, since last year, an upgraded version called OXiom. LightWire and OXiom are among technologies deployed over the last few years by AT&T in hopes of bringing the speed of broadband to the nation’s homes and offices. “AT&T and Broadband failed to comply with their duty of care to determine whether or not they were infringing, and upon determining infringement, to cease the infringement or obtain authorization through a license,” C-Cation said in its court complaint filed June 14 in U.S. District Court in White Plains. The case (02 civ. 4515) is pending before U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. At deadline, the court recorded no AT&T response to the complaint. Tracy Baumgartner, spokeswoman for AT&T Broadband, said AT&T has received the filing and “we are evaluating the claims.” Aldo V. Vitagliano, C-Cation’s vice president for legal affairs, declined to comment CELL-BASED TECHNOLOGY C-Cation bases its technology on electronic “cells,” each allowing interactive two-way communication on traditional one-way cable TV lines. At the center of each cell is a “community multiple services unit,” or server that can store and process signals from various service providers, for transmission to customers. At issue in the lawsuit is whether AT&T infringed on U.S. Patent No. 5,642,155, for a technology that allows two-way multimedia communication within cable networks. The patent was one of two issued to C-Cation’s chairman and chief executive officer, Alexander L. Cheng. C-Cation says AT&T infringed on Cheng’s patent by dividing the cable TV system into subsections or “hubs,” by allocating separate frequencies for two-way signals, by using those frequencies for two-way signals within the hubs, and by creating a converging point at each hub for the two-way signals that links to a wide-area network. AT&T’s two-way technology, unveiled in 1999, extends fiber lines closer to customers’ homes than traditional hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) networks. The technology uses “minifiber nodes” that convert signals from optical to electrical and vice versa. The mininodes eliminate the need to amplify signals within the fiber that carries them. MONEY-SAVING TECHNOLOGY LightWire and OXiom use 50 percent less power and up to 80 percent fewer active electronic components than earlier AT&T technology. As a result, says AT&T, the system is expected to be more reliable — and more importantly, pay for itself within four years. “While the cost of implementing such an advanced cable plant carries an incremental expense as high as $40 per household passed, it is also expected to generate an ongoing operational savings of up to $11 per household per year,” AT&T projected in a 1999 technical publication. The system’s cost-cutting potential is no small concern for AT&T at a time when it is pursuing a $72 billion merger with Comcast Corp. to create a broadband behemoth with 22 million subscribers in 17 of the nation’s 20 largest markets.
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