From the labs to the Market

CRC is shaping the future of global telecommunications and transforming technology and knowledge into commercial opportunities for Canadian companies.

CRC continues to maintain a solid revenue stream, despite the global downturn in telecommunications. During 2003-04, CRC earned $2.43M through an active program of technology licensing, contracted research and industrial collaborations with some 212 companies.

Companies benefited from CRC's expertise and technologies in several areas, including: advanced error correcting techniques; modem technology; Spectrum Explorer'; RF propagation prediction software; linear power amplifier technology; fibre Bragg gratings; optical couplers; web-based training software; helium speech processing; rectenna technology; bus safety technology; HF block equalization; CRC-FRC,(a video frame rate conversion algorithm); CRCSEAQ (audio quality assessment); CRC-COVLAB, (a broadcast coverage prediction software); Software Communications Architecture for Software Defined Radio; electromagnetic scanning; and, video testing.

Technology Transfer, Industrial Collaboration and Contracting-In Agreements

During the period from March 31, 2003 to March 31, 2004, CRC had 427 active technology transfer, industrial collaboration, and contracting-in agreements.

Licence Agreements

• The fibre Bragg grating portfolio continued to be CRC's largest licence and royalty revenue generator, earning approximately $500,000 over the year. This total includes significant fees paid to CRC by its cross-licensing partner, United Technologies Corporation. UTC successfully implemented an enforcement licensing program, in partnership with CRC, through the retention of an intellectual property law firm (NSHN) in the U.S. NSHN signed licence agreements with Weatherford, Luna and K2 Optronics and is currently negotiating with a fourth company.
• Software for the subjective evaluation of audio quality testing (CRC-SEAQ) and CRC-COVLAB, a program for broadcast transmission analysis, continued to be licensed worldwide, generating $120,000 in revenues for CRC over the year. Major customers include Dolby Sound of the U.S. and Nippon NTT Telegraph Telephone of Japan.
• CRC-Predict radio propagation software is internationally recognized for its prediction accuracy. The software generated $128,000 in licence and royalty fees last year, and continues to be widely used by several organizations.
• CRC's patented advanced frame rate conversion technology (CRC-FRC) has been licensed to Algolith, a spin-off of Montreal-based Miranda Technologies. Algolith has integrated CRC-FRC into its specialized software - a "plug-in" for popular compositing and special effects software such as Apple's Shake, Eyeon's Digital Fusion, and Adobe After Effects.
• As a result of its expertise and international reputation in this field, CRC was selected by the SDR Forum in New York to develop the second version of the reference implementation of the SCA. CRC's proposal was endorsed by NASA, Rhode and Schwarz, Mercury Computer System, ISR Technologies and the U.S. Department of Defence Joint Tactical Radio System Project Office.
• Growing interest in Software Defined Radio has resulted in several licences for CRC's Software Communications Architecture (SCA), including ISR Technologies of Montreal (full version), Ottawa-based IP Unwired (baseline version), and Toronto-based Array Computer System (trial version).
• CRC's Forward Error Correcting codes were licensed to several companies, including Advantech, Vistar, Square Peg, and Advanced Mobile Phones, to enhance the performance of their wireless products. The technology includes a newly developed Soft-In-Soft-Out decoding technique for block codes.
• A new version of Spectrum Explorer's' signal analyzer and modulation recognition software was developed and licensed to Interactive Circuits and Systems Ltd. of Ottawa. The company's affiliate, SensorCom Inc., is integrating the software into a product being sold to a U.S. government organization. The military version of Spectrum Explorer' was licensed to the U.S. military through a collaborative effort involving Defence Research and Development Canada - Ottawa. This multi-million-dollar project is expected to extend over several years as the system is customized to meet military requirements and evaluated for operational implementation.
• Two technologies - a direct Transmitter Compensation Technique and Linearization Technique for Power - have been licensed to Advantech AMT of Dorval (Quebec).
• British Technologies Group (BTG) International has licensed CRC's fibre coupler portfolio as part of an assertion licensing program. Over the years, CRC has suspected widespread infringement of the patents, but has been unsuccessful in broadly licensing them. Reverse engineering conducted by CRC for BTG on infringing products has shown promising results and is expected to attract new licensees for this established CRC technology.
• CRC collaborated with Skywave Mobile, Avendo Wireless, Redline Communications and other Canadian companies to develop advanced customized planar antennas.
• CRC helped Genesis Microchip, Intel, NASA and other organizations test and evaluate advanced digital video systems and technologies.

Patents

As of March 31, 2004, CRC had:

• 226 active patents and applications covering 94 inventions that are either licensed or available for licensing
• 25 new patent applications filed and 11 patents awarded

New patents were issued for the following technologies:

• Method and Device for Reducing Polarization Dependence in an Optical Component or Optical System
• "Magic-Tee" for reduction in power loss and component size for microwave and millimetre wave antenna and RF subsystems
• Broadband Circularly Polarized Dielectric Resonator Antenna
• Broadband Nonhomogeneous Multi- Segmented Dielectric Resonator Antenna System
• Antenna Array Feed for Axially Symmetric and Offset Reflectors
• File Transfer Using Facsimile Modem
• Interpolation of an Image Sequence Using Object-Based Image Analysis (CRC-FRC - Advanced Frame Rate Converter)
• Reducing Polarization Dependence in Optical Components using tilted gratings
• A Method for Calibrating a Wideband Direction System (Spectrum Explorer')
• Bandwidth Reduction for Stereoscopic Imagery and Video Signals (3D TV)

New patent applications were filed for the following technologies:

• Amplifier linearization technique
• Bit Rate Reduction in Audio Data Encoders
• Transmitter Identification System
• Gimbaled Antenna Mounting Platform
• Bragg Grating and Method of Producing a Bragg Grating Using a Femtosecond Laser
• Error correcting technique - Soft Input Soft Output Decoding for Linear Block Codes
• Radio beam processing using Thick Volume Hologram for Microwave Frequencies
• Estimation of Unreliable Digital Speech Samples
• Ultra-Wideband Monopole-Dielectric Resonator Antenna
• OFDM Wireless System with Improved Bandwidth Efficiency
• Channel Estimation/Characterization Technique for OFDM Wireless Systems
• Temperature Compensation Through Packaging for Planar Lightwave Circuits
• Fibre Bragg Grating with Cladding mode Suppression and Method of producing a Fibre Bragg Grating with Cladding mode Suppression Using an Ultrafast Laser
• MIMO systems channel modeling technique
• Image and Video Compression using wavelets
• Microwave chip size reduction - Size reduced Uniplanar Transmission Line