Vringo today issued a note to investors that details the wireless infrastructure portfolio it recently acquired from Nokia. The portfolio of 500 patents was purchased as Nokia's moves to cut costs and streamline its operations around its struggling smartphone business.

According Clifford Weinstein, Vringo’s executive vice president, the patents fit into five general categories of infrastructure technologies: Communication Management; Data & Signal Transmission; Mobility Management; Radio Resources Management and Services.

The patents relating to communication management involve messaging and supplementary services including call waiting and conferencing and cover communications. The data & signal transmission patents involve sending voice and data. Specifically, the patents cover the technology dealing with both kinds of transmissions. Thus, the patents covering voice transmission include communications from mobile devices, to base transceiver stations, to base station controllers, to mobile switching centers, to the public telephone network, known as the PSTN.

The patents relating to mobility management involve tracking mobile device subscribers when they move from one location to another, allowing calls, SMS and other mobile phone services to be delivered to them as they move from the proximity of one cell tower to another and from one network to another.

The patents relating to radio resources management involve ensuring efficient communication between the various components of the infrastructure network such as routers, switches, and gateways. The patents cover aspects of communications such as handoff, load balancing, channel assignment and packet scheduling.

The patents relating to services involve using the mobile infrastructure network for various remote transactions like billing, ticketing, e-services, and notifications.

According to Nokia, 31 of the 124 patent families acquired have been declared essential by Nokia to wireless communications standards. Standards represented in the portfolio are commonly known as 2G, 2.5G, 3G and 4G and related technologies and include GSM, WCDMA, T63, T64, DECT, IETF, LTE, SAE, and OMA.

Vringo bills itself as “engaged in the innovation, development and monetization of mobile technologies and intellectual property.”  The company operates a global platform for the distribution of mobile social applications and services including Facetones and Video Ringtones.