My Idol of the Week - Brent Townshend
“Townshend noticed that downloads from servers connected to the phone network via digital links, such as T-1s, could reach 56K bit/sec because they didn’t have to undergo speed-sapping analog-to-digital conversions. Uploads required these conversions, limiting speeds to 33.6K bit/sec. He patented technology essential to making fast-down, slow-up modems.
“I said, ‘This is an easy thing to do. I can just license this to people that are in the modem business. I don’t have to start competing with them or set up my own distribution,’” Townshend says.
His patent claim came as a horrible surprise to International Telecommunication Union members working on a 56K bit/sec modem standard in 1996. At a meeting, word came out that Townshend not only filed for a patent but had already licensed his ideas to modem maker U.S. Robotics.
“Everyone was a little upset that this pops out at what felt like a late time in the process and hadn’t come up to the surface before,” says Ken Krechmer, a member of that ITU committee. “It really created an enormous mess.”
When Townshend showed up at the next ITU meeting, everyone took note. “I wanted to get a sense of the guy and what he thought he was doing,” Krechmer says. “I got the impression of a good, solid technical guy, a good applied mathematician who saw that there was a really interesting way to solve a specific problem and decided to patent it.”
The 44-year-old Townshend, who has licensed his technology for millions of devices, presented reasonable terms and the ITU work went ahead. (Licensing fees have dropped from as much as $2.50 per modem to as little as 22 cents per modem between 1999 and today.)
He wouldn’t detail how much he has reaped in modem license fees over the years. But with analysts estimating that roughly 100 million 56K modems were sold in each of the past two years, figure he’s getting at least $22 million a year in license fees based on a 22-cent fee per soft modem.”
EXCERPT FROM:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2004/0308widernetmodem.html
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