Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

22 Companies Sued Over Wi-Fi Patents

Posted by kdawson on from the all-my-trolls-live-in-texas dept.

Newer Guy writes "Wi-LAN, another patent holding company, has sued 22 companies that make or sell wireless routers. Defendants include Apple. Atheros, Belkin, Best Buy, Buffalo, Dell, HP, Intel, and Lenovo. Wi-LAN has a portfolio of more than 280 issued or pending patents." Of course the two patent suits were filed in Marshall, Texas.

13 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Re:interesting here that -- by wizzard2k · · Score: 5, Informative

    They sued Cisco 3 years ago.

  2. Actually by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wi-LAN was an early innovator in the field of wireless stuff. They weren't formed as a patent holding company. Unfortunately, they couldn't compete in the post 802.11 market, and slowly withered away. They were part of the team that developed the WiMAX standard, and did a lot of pioneering work with OFDM. A year or so ago, they finally gave up and sold the various pieces of the company off to various other companies... *cough* fujitsu *cough*. Blame them.

  3. Re:Who's missing? by __NR_kill · · Score: 3, Informative

    Cisco isn't spared either: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/24/cisco_wifi_lawsuit/

  4. Re:interesting here that -- by wizzard2k · · Score: 5, Informative
    They settled.

    As part of the agreement, Cisco also received a license to Wi-LAN's patent portfolio. Other terms and conditions of the agreement are confidential.
  5. List of Patents by Anti_Climax · · Score: 4, Informative

    For those that are curious, a list of the patents Wi-LAN holds is here:

    http://www.wi-lan.com/patents/patents-issued.aspx

    --
    Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
  6. Re:And again by sqrt(2) · · Score: 1, Informative

    Part of the Americas maybe. On this US centric website the word America by itself refers to the United States of America, and not the larger encompassing landmass. This is different in the rest of the world, but this is slashdot, an American website.

    You're welcome.

    --
    If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
  7. Re:Who's missing? by king-manic · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, these guys seem to have genuinely invented the work they hold the patents for, though they were working for the University of Calgary at the time - does the University allow its employees to hold the IP for inventions made in the course of their University funded research through private holding companies? If I was a Canadian taxpayer, I'm not sure I'd be happy about that. Universities normally have some sort of arcane policy about it. You invent X with grant money university skims Y and Z goes back to the inventors. It's fairly standard. Your tax dollars may fund it, but it's the inventors blood; sweat; tears; time; effort; intellect; experience; grad students; and ingenuity that makes it work. The university does get a cut. There have been times where the policy has screwed people out of great deals of money (University of Alberta: DNA sequencer) by botching the deals and only grabbing a small piece of an immense pie due to bureaucratic wrangling.
    --
    "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
  8. Re:I wonder.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Some friends and I setup and brainstormed in late 97 and early 98 about the possibility of wireless networking using the 900 MHz and the 2.4 GHz range.

    Don't be silly.

  9. Re:And again by hullabalucination · · Score: 3, Informative

    I live in Texas now. From what I've read, the reason that patent trolls like to file in the Eastern Texas District Federal Court in Marshall is that juries have historically been very sympathetic to patent holding plaintiffs, for whatever reason. The first cases filed in Marshall IIRC involved Texas Instruments and of course TI was counting on the home court advantage (although why Marshall instead of a Federal court closer to Dallas is beyond me. Maybe it's the lure of the Annual Fire Ant Festival). Apparently after TI's win(s), Marshall became known as the place to file if you had a patent case.

    Having also lived in California, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri and Alabama, I'm pretty sure I could find several other Federal district courts in which to file in those states and get pretty much the same sort of jury, but Marshall was there first and got the reputation. Plus, they have the Fire Ant Festival and those other states don't. Never underestimate the draw of the Fire Ant Festival.

    Interesting page here explaining the situation with Marshall:
    http://www.marshall-chamber.com/pages/inthenews.php

    _ _ _ _ _

    A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths.
    —Stephen Wright

  10. Patent numbers? by bflynn · · Score: 2, Informative

    I found another link that gives the information. The patents claimed in the suit are 5,282,222, RE37,802 () and 5,956,323. The filing dates are 1992, 1997 and 2000. You can Google the numbers to try to understand what the patents are about, but unless you have a deep understanding of RF technology, its will probably be greek.

    Brian

  11. Local rules + pro-plaintiff bias by Infonaut · · Score: 3, Informative

    I must assume that building houses a court very friendly to the patent trolls, probably someone ignorant of technology enough to not recognize obviousness and prior art in the tech sector.

    The primary reason is that a few years ago the ED Texas set itself up specifically to be a venue for these kinds of cases. In 2002 there were 32 patent cases in ED Texas. In 2006 there were over 10x that number. They've developed a set of local rules that favor rapid resolution of cases. If you're a smaller patent troll going up against a larger patent holder, you want a speedy resolution. Otherwise, the big patent holder can bleed you dry with motion after motion, and extended discovery. The judges in ED Texas aren't idiots, and from what I've heard, the jurors aren't either.

    Still, the combination of local rules and a pro-plaintiff bias add up to a very favorable venue for trolls.

    --
    Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
  12. Re:And again by Denis+Lemire · · Score: 3, Informative

    Wi-LAN WAS a real company. I've used some of their backhauls in the past, they were great.

    They failed to maintain a significant market share and are now a gutted litigation machine with no products to speak of.

    They are in the same category as SCO, once a significant player, now a miserable failure of an organization that is resorting to patent trash to try and make a buck.

  13. Re:I wonder.... by The+Lord+of+Chaos · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wi-Lan's core patent is 528222 for OFDM (Orhogonal Frequency Division Muliplexing). It expires in 2012.

    Wi-Lan is using this to sue users of 802.11 and Wi-Max.

    They also acquired several patents from other companies, notably Ensemble for stuff relating to implementing a MAC layer for Wi-Max. "Inovative" ideas such as using a MAC co-processor. There's about 20 of those.

    You can find a list of Wi-Lan's patents here:
    http://www.wi-lan.com/patents/patents-issued.aspx

    These days they are in the business of buying moldy old patents that companies can't be bothered with enforcing and trying take make money off of them.