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802.11n May Never Happen Due to Patent Concerns
afabbro writes "The Register is reporting that the 802.11n standard is imperiled because the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization has refused to submit a Letter of Assurance, promising not to sue those who implement the standard. '...the realization that CSIRO holds essential patents, and has failed to provide a Letter of Assurance as required by the IEEE, could prevent the standard ever being finalized ... 802.11n promises to deliver a fivefold increase in speed, and double the range of 802.11g. Indeed in many cases it's already delivering something approximating that, as pre-standard kit has been available for almost a year. In May the Wi-Fi Alliance got so bored waiting for the IEEE to complete the standard that they started certifying kit as conforming to the draft, even though the final version isn't expected until 2008."
"Try to" being the operative phrase.
CSIRO filed the patent on OFDM in 1992, and informed IEEE in 1997 that the method was patented and would attract royalties. American businesses including Lucent, Cisco and HP have ignored CSIRO's request for companies using the technology (which took 8 years to develop) to license IP rights.
Hypocrisy runs deep in big business.
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Because we are a small country we do tend to hold on to assets like this a little bit tighter. Or try to, anyway.
I think this is part of the problem, however the greater problem is that there are companies out there who are already violating patents by producing 802.11g equipment covered by CSIRO patents that STILL do not pay royalties. There was a big deal about this a while ago. Sadly, American companies seem to love to want to overlook this while screaming if somebody overseas violates their patent.
I believe that the people who make gear based on 802.11g & 802.11n should at least be honourable enough to give royalties to the people that invented the technology to enable their products (leading to their income) to exist should get something in return. That's the whole idea of patents, correct?
To boil this down, CSIRO invented the schemes to make 802.11n work. Companies want to use this technology to make money, but don't want to share any of it with the inventor. This sounds like perfect use of the patent system.
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The problem in this particular case that the required formal statement that they will not sue companies making devices in accordance with the spec also sort of kills the whole patent for them. In order to succesfully "request a royalty per device from manufacturers, and go home" they have to be able to sue those manufacturers who don't pay. This is true even if they were to price that royalty in the micropayments range. It's even true if they were to just ask for a one-time 10$ fee per manufacturer. (Of course in the latter extreme case, the lawsuit would not pay itself anyway, but I'm simply trying to clarify my point by "going extreme".)
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CSIRO is constantly being told by government to earn some of it income. As it was when I was working there, CSIRO only got about 70% of its income from government subsidies, the rest was through industrial contracts.
It is perfectly reasonable for CSIRO, in this context, to demand royalties. What's the point of patents otherwise ?
I believe Cisco did come to some licensing agreement with CSIRO, which is not surprising since the start-up they acquired in 2000-2001 to do .11a/g chip development (Radiata) was largely ex-CSIRO people (and also Macquarie University people, who did a lot of collab with CSIRO on OFDM research). Disclaimer: I was peripherally involved and know all the patent holders.
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