The development follows an Indian court order that went in favor of Ericsson, which had sued Micromax for using some of its patented technology to make mobile phones that function on the global system for mobile communications platform.

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The camp's re-engineering awards went to a group that developed a technique to alter the ID numbers on Global System for Mobile Communications cell phones and to another team that found a way to defeat a biometric fingerprint scanning system.

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While the iPhone is offered by carriers around the globe, all of them rely on the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocol.

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Americans are at a disadvantage when it comes to cell phones overseas, because most of the world uses a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standard, Schukai said.

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The GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standard is used throughout Europe, making it a much less fragmented market for mobile communications than the U.S., and mobile phone penetration is particularly high in Northern Europe.

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In 1993, NTT DoCoMo, Japan's principal mobile-phone carrier, opted for a technical standard called Personal Digital Cellular (PDC), which was incompatible with the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), the standard adopted by most of the rest of the world.

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At the time cellular calls flitted from tower to tower under an electronic protocol later known as GSM (global system for mobile), a group effort whose three progenitors--Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola--had pooled their patents and didn't charge one another any royalties.

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Unveiled at IFA in Berlin, the Russian Mobile Operating System or RoMOS reportedly mimics the look and feel of Android and works with Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System.

ENGADGET: RoMOS is Russia's take on Android OS, shields users from Google's prying eyes