The European patent relates to Ancillary Terrestrial Components (ATCs) that are based on GSM or CDMA technologies and covers the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, The Netherlands, Italy and Germany.

"Given the central role that GSM and WCDMA play in Europe, this patent protects MSV's ATC intellectual property and extends its coverage over a continent that includes key manufacturers of GSM and WCDMA," said Dr. Peter D. Karabinis, MSV's senior vice president and chief technical officer.

"ATC represents an enormous innovation worldwide for the entire industry. MSV has always recognized the value of perfecting its patent portfolio in key jurisdictions throughout the world where ATC networks can be deployed and has filed its entire portfolio of patent applications (over 100) in Europe."

"MSV's patent filings describe and protect not only certain preferred ATC approaches to be implemented by MSV, but also alternative approaches that may be contemplated by third parties," said Donald Stout, head of MSV's patent strategy team and founder and chief strategist of NTP.

"MSV's patent filing approach covers an expansive range of potential ATC implementation alternatives. MSV has patented many diverse aspects of the hybrid network design (preferred and otherwise) and plans to deploy a next generation, feature-rich, hybrid satellite-terrestrial MSS/ATC system."

The issuance of this patent brings MSV's total number of ATC/MSS patents to eight in the U.S. since 2004. This provides MSV with over 800 issued ATC/MSS claims to date. The issued claims span a broad spectrum of ATC/MSS network features/functions including the ability of an ATC network to dynamically "reconfigure" itself, the ability to function "autonomously" from the satellite(s) and the ability to "modify" satellite frequencies prior to using such frequencies in an ATC network.

These ATC/MSS patents complement MSV's legacy portfolio of nearly 70 additional U.S. patents developed over the past 15 years. As the first MSS provider authorized to provide service in the United States and Canada, MSV has developed a patent portfolio that covers a breadth of novel satellite-based telecommunications solutions. MSV also owns the Celsat ATC patents dating back to the early 90s.

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