Escort Inc. vs. Cobra Electronics Corporation

Over the past several months there has been quite a bit of debate regarding the enforcement of patents in the radar detector and laser jamming industry on RadarDetector.net
Wikipdedia states that the elements of patent infringement includes any party that manufactures, uses, sells, or offers for sale patented technology during the term of the patent and within the country that issued the patent, is considered to infringe the patent.
As the operator of RadarDetector.net, I have come under fire from radar detector enthusiasts for censoring messages relating to devices that I suspect violate patents and by manufactures for not censoring enough of these messages because they feel the messages themselves encourage the illegal importation and use of these products within the USA.
Today while searching the net for cases involving the speed countermeasure industry, I was surprised to find a recent filing by Escort Inc. against Cobra Electronics for patent infringement regarding Escort’s new 9500i radar detector.
In December of 2003, Escort Inc. filed patent number 6,670,905 (905 patent) for a GPS enabled radar detector that aids in the management of unrelated or otherwise unimportant sources (false alerts) and also maintains a list of the known stationary sources in nonvolatile memory. After the patent was grated to Escort, I would suspect that they used it in the development of their new 9500i radar detector.
I was aware of Escort’s patent and was one of the select few that had an opportunity to test and review the Escort 9500i’s before its release at the 2007 CES Show in Las Vegas. Therefore it was somewhat of a surprise to me (and several others in the radar detector industry) that several weeks prior to the CES show, Cobra Electronics issued a press release of having the first GPS enabled radar detector, the XRS R9G.
It was then that I asked contacts that I had inside Escort if they had any comment about Cobra’s infringement on their patent. Then the official “off the record comment” was that they needed to look at Cobra’s new detector and their patent and let the attorney decide. After ten months of not hearing any follow-up I figured that the topic was dead, how wrong I was.
Today I located Escort’s complaint 1:07-cv-852 filed October 12, 2007 in the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio against Cobra Electronics alleging that Cobra had violated Escort’s  905 patent with Cobra’s manufacture and sale of the XRS R9G.
On November 11th, Cobra Electronics filed their response to the court disputing Escort’s claim of infringement and filed a counter claim against Escort alleging that Escort violated their “279 patent” entitled “Electronic Signal Detector with Mute Feature” in development of the 9500i.
As both sides are now locked in litigation, it is doubtful that I can get either an official or unofficial response from either side. So we will keep watch for any new legal briefs or filings in this court until the case settles.

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Whistler XTR-260 Radar Detector Review

Driver’s Experience Test
The Third Radar Detector tested for my “Low Priced Radar Detector Review” is the Whistler XTR 260
The XTR 260 retails for around $89.00 and is advertised as an all band radar detector.
I installed the Whistler programmed in highway mode in Tombstone Arizona for our 245 mile trip back home. This trip also included the normal 85 mile test that I normally use for the driver’s performance test.
My first impression when powering the unit up was the ease in being able to notice its visual bright blue display with the periscope LED eyes on top of the detector.
During the entire trip the XTR-260 seemed much quieter then the XTR-185 when it came to false alert reporting.
As we entered Benson the Whistler began alerting to a Ka band alert. Less than a half mile away, I observed an Arizona Department of Public Safety Trooper parked at a gas station.
Ka alert number two came just outside of Tucson, however I was somewhat surprised that the detector was alerting on what I felt was a K band ADOT speed trailer. To confirm my suspicions I plugged in my Bel STi which gave the correct alert of K band.
From experience I have witnessed this same behavior before in lower priced radar detectors in misreporting bands; however I’m not overly concerned as the detector did alert.
Just outside of Tucson, the detector alerted three times to laser within a three mile stretch. It was still mid morning and we were driving west with the sun behind us, so I can only assume that this false was a reflection of some type that caused the detector to alert.
Once in the Phoenix metro area, the detector did give adequate warning on K band to a parked DPS cruiser on the shoulder of the highway.
My overall impression with the XTR-260 was fair. The detector did alert within reasonable limits for a detector in its price range. The filtering was good and the ease of reading the display was good.
Later this week I hope to do the range performance testing on my full arsenal of low priced detectors.
Radar Roy’s Badge Rating – Two Badges

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Cobra XRS 9530 Radar Detector

Driver’s Experience Test
The second detector tested for my “Low Priced Radar Detector Review” is the Cobra XRS 9530.
The XRS 9530 retails for around $149.95 and is advertised as a 12 band radar detector. Cobra’s marketing of their multi bands can sometimes be misleading to consumers as there are only three radar bands and one laser band currently in use in the USA. However Cobra has a tendency to split up the laser band into four segments and add the additional strobe alert, safety alert system, vg2 alert and  spectre alert to these four bands leading a unknowledgeable consumer to believe that the Cobra units detect more radar then competitors models, which is completely false.
We installed the Cobra unit, programmed it to highway mode and added an additional 200 miles to our normal 85 mile route, as we were heading out to Tombstone Arizona for the weekend.
The first thing that struck me about the Cobra unit was on how quite the unit was. Days earlier I had taken the Whistler XTR-185 and I had logged over 15 false alerts on the same roadway. Knowing that even high end radar detectors with much better filtering capabilities would had at least alerted once on this same path, I became a little concerned.
On Interstate 10, just outside of Avondale I received my first K band alert. Ahead approximately 1800 feet, I observed an Arizona Department of Transportation speed trailer.  From my experience I knew that a high ended radar detector would have alerted to this trailer at least four times the distance of the Cobra unit if not more.
Another thing that I found unusual in this encounter and also later encounters, that after the threat passed the detector seemed to be still locked on the same radar detector signal long after it should have had diminished.
While in the Phoenix area on I-10 the detector began picking up numerous X band alerts. As X band is not used in Arizona, I switched modes to city. While in this mode the Cobra detector delays the audio reporting of X band signals until they reach level three while still displaying the alert on the display.
Again I noticed that the detector seemed to be locked on previous X band alerts on the display, much longer then I would expect.
Just outside of Tucson Arizona I noticed a Pima County Sheriff’s Office unit that was parked off the side of the highway with the nose pointed in my direction of travel. Standing outside of the car, I observed the deputy taking measurements. The Cobra unit did not alert to the deputies Ka dash mounted hand held radar gun until I was well inside the deputies kill zone of 1300 feet.
My next encounter was just outside of Tombstone, when the unit alerted to a Ka alert as I crested over a hill right into the path of parked Tombstone Town Marshall.
My overall experience with the Cobra XTR 9530 was poor. No, the detector did not disturb me with false alerts; however when I needed to be alerted the detector just didn’t stand up and do its job. My rule of thumb has been that a detector should have at least seven times the range of the police radar gun to be effective.
In the two encounters with what I fell were both constant on Ka band, the detector did not alert until I was well within the “kill zone” of the officer.
Radar Roy’s Rating – One Badge:

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