U.S. Architect of Mass Market GPS, Sanjai Kohli, Wins Prestigious European Inventor Award

LOS ANGELES and MADRID, April 29 /PRNewswire/ -- The European Patent Office (EPO), in conjunction with the European Commission, has named Sanjai Kohli a 2010 Inventor of the Year for his outstanding work on developing powerful chipsets that increase the speed and precision of GPS navigation systems used commercially in cars, planes, ships and mobile phones.  The annual award is given to individuals and teams whose ideas and innovations have not only made a tremendous impact on shaping the larger modern world, but have also contributed significantly to Europe's economic growth and competitiveness.

Mr. Kohli along with his co-inventor Steven Chen, were among a total of 12 nominees and only three in the 'Non-European Countries' category chosen by a high-profile international jury of entrepreneurs, managers, scientists, researchers, investors and journalists.  Competing candidates from countries such as Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the U.S. represented a broad range of issues, including the conservation of drinking water, cancer treatments, digital data encryption, motion control sensors for wireless controllers, mobile use of fuel cells, "green" plastic, fast internet access directly from a wall outlet, and the civilian use of GPS.  

In a public announcement, European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani, responsible for enterprise and industry policy said, "The 'European Inventor of the Year awards' highlight that Europe continues to be leading in providing breakthrough inventions.  These are striking examples how technical innovation and marketing strategies can successfully interact for the benefit of the economy.  Moreover the lives of millions of people around the world have been improved again."

EPO President Alison Brimelow continued, "The success of these inventions is an incentive to intensify our future efforts to maintain the quality of European patents as an effective instrument in the protection of innovation."

"I am honored to be recognized among such an elite group of innovators by the European Commission and Patent Office," said Sanjai Kohli.  "This award is testament to the importance of our work in areas that are critical to human development.  Take for instance Telecom and Automotive where we are seeing exponential growth in the use of portable navigation devices (PNDs), in-car solutions and mobile phone apps.  Early adoption was met with significant challenges, but my partner and I saw an opportunity to eliminate some of these challenges.  Today, I'm most proud to be honored for our efforts and contribution made to the advancement of end-users."  

While leading an engineering team at the Company he founded, San Jose-based SiRF, Mr. Kohli and his co-technologist Steven Chen, came up with a new approach to removing early barriers of GPS by increasing the signal processing power of a GPS chip.  This new approach would enable weak GPS signals to be found within milliseconds and as a result, paved the way for the use of handheld GPS navigators in urban environments.

The new GPS system could also "fill in the blanks" by leveraging alternative sources when satellite signals were down.  This meant that the system could remain in operation even with only one satellite in range.  In contrast, early GPS systems established a geographic position via feedback from a satellite and could only function properly with as many as four in-range satellites.  These systems were expensive and faced major limitations.  If a single satellite's signal became blocked, the receivers failed to navigate.

Mr. Kohli and Mr. Chen's invention helped to spark the proliferation of GPS technology into everyday life by offering GPS chipsets with greater speed, accuracy and effectiveness at a lower cost.  SiRF quickly became the world's leading independent manufacturer of commercial GPS applications.

Today, the global market for GPS devices is huge: Over 300 million units were sold in 2009, and over 400 million units are forecasted for 2010.  Additionally, according to new research ("World GPS Market Forecast to 2013") from RNCOS, the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 20% to cross US$75 Billion by 2013.

Winners of the 2010 awards were announced at an April 28 ceremony in Madrid, Spain.

About the European Inventor Award

This is the fifth time that the highly regarded innovation prizes have been awarded by the European Patent Office in conjunction with the European Commission.  There are four categories: Lifetime achievement, SMEs/research, Industry and Non-European countries.  The awards, which are purely symbolic and involve no material recompense, honor inventive individuals and teams whose pioneering work provides answers to the challenges of our age and thereby contributes to progress and prosperity.  Nomination proposals can be submitted by the public and by patent examiners at the European Patent Office and Europe's national patent offices, and the winners are chosen from among the nominees by a high-caliber international jury.

Previous winners include Adolf Goetzberger, the father of solar-power generation (2009); AIDS researcher Erik De Clercq (2008); Peter Grunberg, Nobel Laureate in Physics (2006); and Federico Faggin, inventor of the microprocessor (2006).

To find out more about the European Inventor Award 2010 and the winners, go to: http://www.epo.org/forum-inventor.

Media contacts for Sanjai Kohli: Dionne Manchester, GW Communications, 212-786-6068, or [email protected], Glenn Wiener of GW Communications, 212-786-6011, or [email protected].

SOURCE Sanjai Kohli