Unwired Planet (formerly, Openwave Systems, Inc.) has an impressive Intellectual Property (IP) track record, assembling a portfolio of over 200 issued U.S. and foreign patents (plus some 75 pending applications), with many of these key technologies being essentially foundational to mobile communications. The company practically invented the Mobile Internet and today announced a new pioneering breakthrough with the launch of a company-branded Zeppelin to take flight in the skies over Silicon Valley.
The flight plan calls for a month of airtime, driving awareness of the company’s rebirth as Unwired Planet, the founder of the Mobile Internet. Additionally, this endeavor will help to promote the company and industry itself by underscoring the important role that UPIP inventors/innovators have played, not only improving perception of the significant economic value created by UPIP’s tech pioneers, but their tremendous impact on the mobile communications industry as a whole.
Brilliant move for UPIP, which is focused on a core strategy emphasizing a multi-faceted, IP-amassing approach centered on deriving substantial shareholder value through aggressive licensing/partnering (and enforcement if necessary).
This announcement marks the first time a B2B technology company like Airship Ventures has thrown in on a sponsorship for a branded Zeppelin over Silicon Valley. The branding partnership between UPIP and Airship Ventures is a spectacular move that should really turn heads throughout the insular and extremely cohesive Silicon Valley community/culture. The company clearly knows what they are doing with this strategy and the anticipated attention this campaign will bring to both the change over in company branding and the core IP portfolio that spans mobile/smart device, cloud technology, and unified messaging platforms, will likely result in amplification of their monetization capacity.
CEO of UPIP, Mike Mulica, threw a spotlight on the primary role played by the company and its historical inventors in building the modern wireless internet environment, confident that this roll out will spark the imaginations of Silicon Valley goers, driving brand awareness for the new identity that is firmly grounded in the vital role played by UPIP. Mulica noted how the Unwired Planet name/concept revivifies that incredibly visionary period of the nascent mobile space, back when the foundational mobile patents were first issued, before any of the convenience we today take for granted was even realized.
Bold moves and statements, but then again we are talking about the company that did the planet’s first ever Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) deployment and has developed technology that plays a critical infrastructural role in the operations of high-profile massive players like AT&T, Comcast, Deutsche Telekom, Time Warner Cable, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile, Vodacom, and Vodafone (to name just a few).
In a new analytical breakdown by Morgan Stanley, this robust space, dominated by devices like the Kindle, iPhone, Android, other smartphones, wireless tablets, wireless gaming systems, and even more advanced GPS devices (all of which are constantly improving as hardware/software improves), is projected to exceed desktop internet use by 2015. This means that the mobile space will be the new primary venue for activity and thus UPIP is well-positioned with its IP portfolio for the growth that will inevitably result from the burgeoning mobile pipeline.
In fact, with so much traffic migrating to mobile, UPIP’s multi-pronged patent monetization strategy (empowered by hard line moves like their recent International Trade Commission complaint filing, requesting that AAPL and RIM imports of smartphones into the U.S. be barred by the agency, as the company posits their patents are infringed thereby) should reap increasingly generous rewards for the company’s shareholders (the company filed a similar complaint in a federal district court in Delaware). The company believes it has a strong legal position to aggress the massive revenue generated by these large companies that have profited off of technology created by Unwired Planet.
A decade and a half on the front lines of the war to unify the world through internet connectivity, UPIP looks ready to re-emerge with a strong IP hand in the mobile space.
For more information on this Redwood City, California-headquartered mobile tech pioneer, head on over to the Unwired Planet, Inc. website at: www.UnwiredPlanet.com
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