Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Xybernaut To Auction Off Location Based Wireless Patents

Xybernaut Corporation a high tech company currently in Chapter 11, has received court approval to sell its "Waypoint" group of patents at auction, with the objective of raising sufficient cash to come out of bankruptcy protection and successfully reorganize.

The "Waypoint" patent group sets forth technology and business processes to provide wireless direct mail by sending information to targeted mobile users at specific locations.

Xybernaut believes the Waypoint patents can allow wireless companies to provide location-based services to mobile devices such as cellphones, PDAs and portable computer devices. Locations can be focused in feet or miles, depending on the desired audience.

These services can include precisely-targeted ads, maps, restaurant locations, traffic reports and other useful information, all automatically queued off of the location and stated preferences of the holder of the wireless device.

Advertisers want to know that they are delivering the desired message to an interested audience at the right time and place. The Company believes that the Waypoint patents enable this exacting business solution.

While advertising has long supported access to radio and television broadcasts and much of the internet, Google has recently announced the first use of this model for wireless services

I wonder who buys these and for how much.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Scott do you have any idea how these compare to location based patents neomedia bought from loyalty point last year?

No Name said...

I'm not a patent attorney.

According to Xybernaut's latest official 10K, they have 500 patents issued and some are listed.

I found patent 6,377,793 interesting.

From the pr "Waypoint patents can enable location-based services to mobile devices such as precisely-targeted ads, maps, restaurant locations, traffic reports and other information based on the receiver's location and stated preferences."

"with Xybernaut's Waypoint technology there would be no need for
building a costly new infrastructure in order to localize service. The
Company believes that advertising-based media companies could combine the
GPS built into mobile devices with Xybernaut's "location-based service"
technology, to beam ads to selected groups of users anywhere, based on
their preferences and mobile device settings. For example, they could beam
a message to people in Times Square telling them that tickets were still available that night for a local theater performance, or that a local men's store had a 30%-off sale underway on suits and topcoats, with an additional
discount for those responding to that beamed message"



Xybernaut has already secured patents that cover an advertising revenue model for location-based services."

SSG Capital Advisors L.P. is working on the sale of the patents.