China Files Case Against Intel's Wireless Network

Krishna Dagli writes "China has launched a case against American chipmaker Intel's near-monopoly on encryption standards for wireless local area network (WLAN) equipment, state press reported Monday."

Comments

Re:china? whaa?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

since when does china care about patent law?

Nothing to do with patent law.

Short version. IEEE submitted 80211i, China submitted WAPI to ISO to be international wireless encryption standards. IEEE won, WAPI lost. China is complaining that IEEE did something bad during the lead up to the voting process. No news sources are reporting what that something was as far as I can see.

So we have nebulous claims of interference in the ISO process. No more, no less.

(I'm not sure whether I dislike/distrust Intel or China more)

Re:Will cause trouble in DC.

[eraser.cpp]

Colin Powell spoke with Chinese trade officials a while back and got them to halt a program that would have required WiFi equipment being sold in China to support WAPI. The program also would have required foreign companies to partner with a Chinese firm before entering the market.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/04/05/HNbarret tochina_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld .com/article/04/04/05/HNbarrettochina_1.html

FTA: "The U.S. government has also weighed in on the issue. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, sent a letter to senior Chinese government officials in March expressing concern over the implementation of China's WLAN standard and that the move created a dangerous precedent for using standards as a barrier to international trade."