22 Companies Sued Over Wi-Fi Patents

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.

Comments

interesting here that --

[crossb0nez]

Cisco (CSCO ticker) was not mentioned at all...

Who's missing?

[644bd346996]

Another story more notable for what's missing than for what's included.

Cisco (who also owns Linksys) is missing from the list of companies, despite being one of the biggest players in the wi-fi market. If they have already licensed the patents in question, that is a very important detail that should be explored.

On the other hand, if Cisco has also been ignoring those patents, and the patent troll in question is not attacking Cisco, there is probably a very interesting reason.

Re:Who's missing?

[jrumney]

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.

Re:Who's missing?

[BenVis]

articles written by journalists are complex and potentially difficult to read! Seriously. Pick up a copy of the New Yorker magazine. Maybe you don't like their slant, or you think people from New York are snooty. Whatever. Grab a copy and read one of the full-length articles. Well, make sure you've got a good hour, those things are long. After regularly reading those for a few years, your typical AP article feels like a summary of what a journalist would write, minus most of the due diligence.

Re:Who's missing?

[happyemoticon]

This was the IP policy at my university:

Staff: Own nothing.

Students (undergrad and grad): Own everything except a) commissioned works and b) works made while receiving pay from the university or another entity.

Faculty: Own everything except a) commissioned works and b) explicitly funded works, in which they retain some degree of ownership. I'm sure they have various other ways to turn the work of professors into money, such as publication agreements and lectures, but by and large professors receive many more privileges than we're used to in the private sector.

Re:Who's missing?

[Rudisaurus]

I can confirm the PP -- I was around when Wi-LAN floated their IPO in the mid-90's. A fairly prescient friend of mine urged me and my co-workers to invest in the company because they had both patented and demonstrated their technology by that point and the IEEE was evaluating their protocol for use as a standard. I didn't invest in the IPO, although a few of my colleagues did, so I missed out on the 40-times share price increase as Wi-LAN rode the dot-com bubble to an absolutely dizzying height before collapsing back to their original value along with everyone else when the bubble burst.

The University of Calgary has a wholly-owned company called University Technologies International (UTI) which exists to assist academics in obtaining patents, licensing new technologies, and attracting the attention of investors for seed money for start-ups -- something I would imagine pretty much any university does, these days.

Why now?

[popo]

If I were the judge I would throw this case out.

The onus of protecting rights should be on the holder of the rights.

The strategy of patent holders must not be to "lay dormant" allowing numerous companies to infringe for a decade, and then when the market reaches critical mass, appear from the shadows with lawsuits.

We've all seen this happen before of course, but in other areas of intellectual property, (Trademarks for example) it is the responsibility to prevent the mark from becoming 'commonly used'. Once it does, a trademark holder can lose the rights to the mark. There are many famous examples of this.

Re:And again

[griffjon]

That seems like a poor choice of defendants. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you first want to bully a small fry without deep pockets and get a judgment supporting your claim, *then* go after the big companies with lawyers on retainers and deep deep pockets?

Re:Good!

[KiltedKnight]

Geez... you're asking for our Congresscritters and others to do the jobs they were elected to do. That would take time away from their ability to acquire money from lobbyists, special interest groups, corporations, and other well-to-do donors.

Next thing you know, you're actually going to ask for them to read the legislation before they're allowed to debate it, let alone vote on it.

I think you'll have an easier time trying to get an independent or third party candidate elected.

But in regards to what you state, the big companies being extorted out of their monies would go and do exactly the same thing to other companies, given the system as it is now. It's all part of the game, and they don't want to change the rules.

Why retailers

[LinuxInDallas]

I do not understand why retailers can be sued. I would think that if patent voilations have been made all the blame should rest on the manufacturers not the stores that are unwittingly selling the devices.

Best Buy?!?

[eyrieowl]

I must confess to being confused by that one. I understand (and abhor patent trolls) suing the manufacturers for not licensing the technology, but the storefront? Just going after someone with deep-pockets, or what? It's not actually a tenant of US law that you, as a seller, have to verify that all your wares are correctly licensed with clear patents/copyrights is it? How could a store ever be sure that all the electronic components in, say, the computers it sells are dispute-free?

Re:You have to love it...

[Skrynesaver]

The really sad thing is that they once actually researched and developed stuff now their just a patent troll
At the risk of sounding repetitive the US really needs to sort out this patent-licensing as a business model thing. The license holders have nothing to add to the marketplace and so their not interested in cross licenses. They just want the money now, which stifles invention and progress. I took a look at their site and their mission statement makes interesting reading

Our mission is to sign license agreements with all companies in the world who use Wi-LAN's patented inventions and to selectively acquire new patents to ensure the Company's long-term growth.

and they seem to believe that they own 802.11(a|b|g|n) in it's entirety

They once actually produced stuff but

In 2006, Wi-LAN reinvented itself to focus exclusively on licensing its intellectual property. Today, under the leadership of Jim Skippen, President & CEO, Wi LAN licenses a large intellectual property portfolio, which includes technologies that apply to a full range of products in the communications and consumer electronics markets.

So yeah their a shower of leaching bastards and should be shot at dawn.

Re:And again

[PFI_Optix]

It's not Texas, it's Marshall. They don't sue in Dallas or Austin or Houston or Lubbock or Longview or Lufkin...they always sue in Marshall. I'm a native Texan who has lived 30 years within a reasonable distance from Marshall, and all that town has going for it is ETBU and a rather attractive holiday scene around their historic courthouse. 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. They found a court that consistently supports them, and keep coming back.

Re:Missing the point of patents

[zippthorne]

"allow the technology to be developed."

Incorrect. The purpose of patents is to encourage inventors to publish their ideas. That can help spur additional development, but it also ensures that technology is not lost if the inventor goes out of business or buys a farm.

Re:And again

[Rudisaurus]

Patent trolls work that way, yes.

Wi-LAN is a real company with technologies and hardware that they've been working on for the better part of 20 years. They were some of the originals in wireless networking, doing real research, and D-Link seems to genuinely have infringed on their patents.

Lemmings

[xigxag]

Wi-LAN claims in their press release that While we prefer to resolve patent infringement through business discussions, we have consistently maintained that litigation was always a possibility when negotiations do not result in a license within a reasonable time. So, at least allegedly, they have been attempting to get this matter resolved through licensing. And since they've been around for 15 years, it seems perhaps not fair to label them as patent trolls.

So I ask you, Slashdotter, imagine this situation. You invent an incremental technological breakthrough, and you patent it. Let's say it involves some esoteric use of carbon nanotubes. Unfortunately, at the moment nobody is manufacturing nanotubes in the quality or consistency that you would need. Basically you have to wait for other tech to mature before your invention can take off.

A few years pass and finally, nanotech is up to the level where your invention could be profitable. You start to ask around to see if other companies are interested in licensing your patent. No takers. Another year passes, and to your shock, products from major companies start to appear on the market that utilize your exact invention. Again you try to work out a license and they all laugh in your face. "Go ahead, try to take us to court. We'll bury you," some legal intern snickers after one heated telephone exchange. Finally, one "patent holding" company offers to buy your invention. Not for much, but for much more than you would otherwise get for it, namely, zero.

Now who's the bad guy in the above scenario? The poor inventor, who couldn't afford to invent all of the other enabling technologies to produce his patent on his own? The patent holding company, who is building up a portfolio from other frustrated inventors? Or the big corporations, who think they're immune from having to pay for intellectual property they expropriate? Or maybe you really think all patents are bad, and if you invent something, your only option is to either give it away for nothing or to try to keep it a trade secret?

My point is: don't be so quick to slavishly kiss up to the corporate overlords and put down every instance of patent litigation. The big corps must be loving the fact that the supposedly free-thinking tech-savvy intellectuals of the world are all lined up in their corner.

Re:Prior art

[GuyverDH]

Or require that they have actually created said *device* and can show it working within x amount of time after patent application.