ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,306,324, issued on May 20, was assigned to Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (Shenzhen, China).

"Methods and system for collaborative local positioning" was invented by Xiaotian Yin (Addison, Texas), Jian Li (Addison, Texas) and Yucen Liu (Addison, Texas).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Collaborative local positioning techniques, such as could be used with smart phones, surveying equipment, or other mobile devices, are described. The techniques include independent techniques for distance measurement between devices, the relative positioning of devices, and an absolute orienting of the devices without use of fixed anchor points and through on-wi...