BELLEVUE, Wash., Oct. 17, 2000 (PRIMEZONE) -- Unity Wireless Corporation (OTCBB:UTYW) announces that it has sold its Sonem Emergency Signal Preemption division to Traffic Systems LLC, a company jointly owned 37% by Unity Wireless and 63% by Traffic Safety Products Inc. of Arizona.
"We are fortunate to be partnered with Traffic Safety Products in order to ensure the success of our Sonem product line," said Unity Wireless President Tom Dodd. "Their knowledge of the signal preemption market, based on their collective 100+ years of traffic-related systems and products experience, should provide for faster growth of the Sonem product than we could have achieved on our own."
Besides its 37% equity interest in Traffic Systems LLC, Unity Wireless will also receive a further US$ 2,000,000, paid from a percentage of gross profits, in consideration of the sale. Unity Wireless will retain all ownership of the patents and intellectual property relating to the Sonem system and will provide the buyer with an exclusive license to use this technology. Once the $2 million has been paid, the intellectual property assets will be transferred to the buyer.
Unity Wireless's Sonem system, installed in over 25 states and three provinces across the United States and Canada, is based on a sophisticated directional microphone installed at intersections. These microphones "listen" for emergency vehicle sirens and upon detection, the system issues a preempt request to the intersection controller, thus offering the emergency vehicle a "protected" green light while turning all other directions to red. Employing systems of this type has been shown to reduce emergency response times and accidents involving emergency vehicles within intersections.
"We are confident our Sonem customers and distributors are in very capable hands and that Traffic Safety Products can continue developing superior preemption technologies," continued Dodd. "This opportunity now allows us to allocate all of our resources towards developing our growing wireless communications business resulting in a win-win situation for all parties."
About Unity Wireless Corporation
Unity Wireless Corporation is a developer and integrator of wireless technology and products for a broad range of industrial and commercial applications. The Company's primary technology, UniLinx, offers end-to-end wireless communication between a host application and various remote devices. The technology allows legacy software systems to communicate wirelessly over the Internet without alteration to the software itself. UniLinx incorporates CDPD modems to communicate over the "Internet enabled" cellular networks. The Company's technology and expertise is being used in transportation applications both in North America and Singapore. For more information, please visit the web site at www.unitywireless.com
Certain information included in this news release, as well as information included in oral statements or other written statements made or to be made by Unity Wireless Systems Corporation and its subsidiaries, contain statements that are forward-looking. Such statements relate to the future anticipated direction of the wireless industry, plans for future expansion, various business development activities, planned capital expenditures, anticipated sales growth and potential contracts. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual operations or results to differ materially from those anticipated.