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U.S. Firms Take on Australia's CSIRO Over Patents

Posted by timothy on from the hey-we-want-those dept.

dingram17 writes "ABC News is reporting that six U.S. computer companies (Apple, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Microsoft and Netgear) are taking legal action to try to break a U.S. patent that the CSIRO holds on wireless networking. The CSIRO has patents on OFDM technology, as used in 802.11a and 802.11g. It has been alleged that the CSIRO demands $4 per chipset for the use of this technology. It appears that the patent in question is U.S. Patent 5,487,069 'Wireless LAN.' From a quick look, this appears to be a wide ranging patent."

2 of 426 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A little help? by danpat · · Score: 5, Informative

    Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

    Kind-of a catch-all government sponsored department for scientific research.

    See http://www.csiro.au/

  2. Re:Wow.... by shitdrummer · · Score: 5, Informative

    A government entity should never be allowed to patent its own tech, that tech was paid for by the people and should be available freely to all in every scenario I can possibly think of.

    Profits from CSIRO patents are reinvested into research. This in turn lowers the required government funding thus saving Aussie taxpayers quite a bit of money.

    By the way, the CSIRO is highly respected by a lot of Australians.

    Shitdrummer