Tech firm earns two patents

SARASOTA — xG Technology, a firm that has spent more than a decade on a mission to provide an inexpensive system for Internet-based cell phone calls, has been awarded two new patents.

The Sarasota-based company now holds 40 U.S. patents, with 24 more pending, according to a release. The latest patents, for technology over what's called Self-Organizing Networks, will allow xG to bring down the costs of deploying and operating wireless networks, the release states.

The inventions will also enable network infrastructure, the base station of a mobile system, to become fully mobile. The company says that's ideal for “situations encountered by public safety, homeland security, and military entities during disaster response and recovery operations, like those faced in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

“The real-time sensing technology embodied in our xMax cognitive radio networks enables xG to deliver innovative technology and capabilities such as those included in these two granted patents,” xG Chief Technology Officer Joe Bobier says in the release. “The inventions covered in these patents will enable xG to offer its customers self-organizing and self-optimizing wireless broadband solutions.”

Local entrepreneurs Rick Mooers and Roger Branton teamed up with Bobier in 1999, and launched xG by 2002. The firm received a $10 million capital investment in late 2010. Read more about the technology, and the history of the company, here.