In 1996 Jukka Salonen was a Vice President at Telecom Finland working under Matti Makkonen, a key contributor to the early development of SMS and inclusion into the GSM standards. During this time Salonen worked with a team to create the world’s first mobile airline check-in, mobile payment system and mobile parcel tracking system. Salonen saw that the new mobile paradigm shift underway had the potential to put more control in the hands of customers. To adapt, businesses would need to rebuild internal business processes to assist and support individual preferences at critical points in the customer journey. This is what led Salonen to found Bookit in 1999 (now Smartcom Labs) with the mission of giving customers proactive, assistive services and a revolutionary level of control over everyday transactions.
Today millions of mobile users take for granted that they have substantially more control their own experiences than in decades past. Consumers tell a company what they need and expect that their wishes are carried out – that the car service will arrive within minutes of when they want it, that the parcel delivery will get re-routed or rescheduled to accomodate their needs, that the upgrade to first class will be available with a couple of clicks. Mobile has revolutionised customer expectations of control – and Smartcom Lab's portfolio of innovations have been instrumental in this transformation.
Since the founding of Bookit, Clickandeasy, and Smartcom Labs, Salonen has worked with various other global companies to innovate their roadmaps toward creating more human centered services. Smartcom Labs has now realized a patent portfolio with well over 150 patents with numerous inventions now adopted into mass markets and de facto standards across the globe. Solenen's technology provides for example, the mediated dialogue handling logic that has enabled the coordination of marketplace activity in sharing-economy, that has enabled banks to actively engage in actionable fraud alerts, and for emergency alerting services to connect with dispatch operations.
Citations towards Smartcom Labs' patent portfolio include many well known brands and technology innovators from North America such as Apple, Blackberry, Citigroup, IBM and Visa, to international leaders such as Deutsche Telekom, Fujitsu, Rakuten, and Yandex.
The full list includes:
A:
ACCEPTTO | ALCATEL LUCENT | ALIBABA GROUP HOLDING LTD | AMADEUS | AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES | APPLE | ARUBA NETWORKS INC | ASAP SOFTWARE EXPRESS | AT&T | AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES | AVENTAIL | AVG NETHERLANDS. AXIOLOG ([US]) |
B:
BAIC BJEV ([CN]) | BARADOY GRAHAM BRUCE ([CA]) | BARADOY LEIF ALEXANDER ([CA]) | BAY BRIDGE DECISION TECHNOLOGIES | BEIJING AUTOMOBILE RES GEN INST CO LTD | BEIJING QIHUA COMMUNICATION | BEIJING WIRELESS SPORTS CLUB | BERGHOLM GORAN MIKAEL ([FI]) | BHUMKAR SOUJANYA | BLACKBERRY | BOE TECHNOLOGY | BOOKER SOFTWARE | BRIGHT SUN TECHNOLOGIES SERIES 42 OF THE ALLIED SECURITY TRUST I | BT |
C:
CALVO RAMIRO | CAMERON KENNETH MACDONALD | CC ACQUISITION | CCO INSURANCE SOLUTIONS | CHONGQING BOE OPTOELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY | CITIGROUP INC | CLARIDY SOLUTIONS | CLEARCARE | CLIFT JEFFREY C ([US]) | CLOUDSOFT | CREDANT TECHNOLOGIES |
D:
D LIGHT DESIGN | DEEM | DELL | DELL INTERNATIONAL | DELL MARKETING | DELL SOFTWARE | DELL SYSTEMS | DEUTSCHE TELEKOM ([DE]) | DIGITAL RIVER | DOMINGUEZ BENEDICTO HERNANDEZ ([US]) | DRNC HOLDINGS |
E - I:
E-CITY ([FI]) | ECHOPASS | ELISA OYJ | ELWHA A LIABILITY | EMC IP HOLDING | EMIRATES |
FAITH PATRICK ([US]) | FMRFORCE10 NETWORKS | FOUNDER GROUP | FREDERICK LABS | FUJITSU LIMITED | GEAGAN JOHN B III | GENESYS TELECOMMUNICATIONS LABORATORIES | GLEDHILL CHRISTOPHER | GODDY CHRISTIAN | GOOGLE | GOSNEY PETER JOHN | GOTENNA |
HAMMAD AYMAN ([US]) | HANGZHOU YISHENGXIANG COMM TECHNOLOGY | HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT | HOSIDEN SHARP MOLEX HOSIDEN | HUDSON GORDON TIMOTHY ([GB]) | IBM | INGENICO | INTELMATE | INTERACTIVE INTELLIGENCE | INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES | INTUIT |
J - P:
JAIN GAURAV | JENKINS MICHAEL D | JPMORGAN CHASE BANK ([US]) | KAPPES JON E ([US]) | KARL STORZ GMBH & CO KG | KASPERSKY LAB ZAO | KOGANTI KRISHNA PRASAD ([US]) | KONAMI DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT | KONICEK JEFFREY C ([US]) | KOUSTHUB P S | LABORATORIYA KASPERSKOGO | LEISURE PASS | LI GINO | LIBERSY | LIVERSY | LOCATION LABS | LOCKE PETER ALEXANDER DIDRIKSON ([CA]) | LOUIS BRENDAN XAVIER ([US]) | MAGINATICS | MARKPORT | MASTERCARD INTERNATIONAL | MC10 | MCDONALD ANTHONY RYAN ([CA]) | MINDBODY | MOZY | NEC | NICTA ([AU]) | NXP | ORACLE INTERNATIONAL | PAYPAL | PERI RONALD J ([US]) |
Q - T:
QUALCOMM ([US]) | RACKSPACE | RAKUTEN ([JP]) | RDIO | REARDEN COMMERCE | RELAY HOLDINGS | RELAY NETWORK | REMOTIAN SYSTEMS | REWIS BEN ([US]) | RIZZI GAETANO | S ASHWIN | SALLOUM HOUSSAM | SAP | SCHEDULICITY | SENIORTEK | SEVEN NETWORKS | SHAANXI QIANGXING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY | SHOP RIDE | SILVERCAR | SITA INFORMATION NETWORKING COMPUTING ([IE]) | SKALA THOMAS ([US]) | SONY | SONY ERICSSON MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS | SORUCO LIZETH RUTH ([US]) | SQUARE | SRR PATENT HOLDINGS | STONE ARCH BRIDGE MINNEAPOLIS | SYMANTEC | TALARIS | TANGIBLE SOCIAL | TANNER PETER ([GB]) | TARGET BRANDS | TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS MAN ([GB]) | TELETECH HOLDINGS | THOM KENNETH S | TOIVONEN PEKKA ([FI]) |
V - Z:
VISA | VOLKSWAGEN A.G. | VTEL PRODUCTS ([US]) | WAKSMUNDZKI JACEK | WELLER KEVIN ([US]) | WESTERN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES | WOORI BANK ([KR]) | WUHU RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF INSTITUTE TECHNOLOGY OF AUTOMOBILE | XIAOMI TECH | XPO LAST MILE | YAHOO | YANDEX | ZHANG JACK KE ([US]) | ZHANG JIE | ZTE ([CN]) |
Salonen’s innovations have consistently achieved early priority dates that predicted industry trends over two decades later. Most CPaaS solutions today were built on the foundations Salonen laid.
Salonen’s innovations in seamless handoff between mediums and channels while maintaining a single unified dialogue, is today embedded within the industry trend towards so called ‘omni-channel’ commerce. If history is a guide, then these innovations will become increasingly ubiquitous within the next decade.
The Smartcom Labs portfolio of innovation is steadily benefiting from the increasingly blurred line between physical products/services and digital products/services. The convergence of trends shown above has provided a strong tailwind for Salonen’s innovations.
The adoption of pools of 10 digit long numbers which Salonen advocated as a better solution to earlier prior art has been widely adopted under the banner of 10DLC originator codes by US operators. The FCC has likewise understood that SMS is an information service and has greenlighted the use of interactive fraud alerts by banks and other businesses when user’s must be reached urgently. In 2020, CPaaS has become a mainstay of modern communications.
Salonen is quick to understand that one company, regardless of its immense ambitions, cannot bring innovation to the market alone. Salonen has started a ‘Lab’ to transfer technology and patent licenses to partner companies. Companies such as Smart Mile, MBE, and Partial.ly have benefited from commercialisation of Salonen’s patents through partnership and licensing agreements.
The following whitepaper provides a good starting point for an overview of the Smartcom Labs Portfolio of innovations and some sample implementations. And for those wanting to take a deep dive look at our many patents, scroll down to the list at the end of this page which includes a synopsis and link.
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