Calypso Wireless said it has received a patent on technology that allows roaming between cellular networks and Wi-Fi or Bluetooth without dropping the connection: The company's CEO flat out says in this story that he's trying to pursue the Qualcomm model. Qualcomm developed CDMA to compete with GSM but requires users to pay royalties for the technology.
It will be interesting to see exactly what Calypso got a patent for and if ultimately anyone doing any kind of cell/Wi-Fi handoff will have to pay Calypso. There are already a handful of other companies working on such roaming.
Companies filing for patents to capitalize on the growth of the Wi-Fi standard may become a trend. This Calypso news comes after Nomadix recently received a patent on redirect, which allows hotspot operators to display a sign in page when customers first open their browsers using the network. While Nomadix said it planned to enforce the patent, no vendor or operator we talked to said it had been approached by Nomadix.
In other Nomadix news, The Cloud said it will use Nomadix' gateways to offer venues the opportunity to build hotspots and become part of The Cloud network. As part of the offering, The Cloud will manage the hotspot and share revenues with the venue. A press release about the deal doesn't seem to be available online yet but should appear here eventually.