Buffalo Tech Gets New Trial On Wi-Fi Patent

MrLint writes "It's been a long, nearly two years of silence since CSIRO won a patent battle against Buffalo Tech, causing an injunction preventing the Austin company from selling wireless routers. On September 19, 2008, a Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that CSIRO patent claims are invalid and Buffalo is getting a new trial. With any luck, we will be able to get our grubby hands on low-cost Wi-Fi routers again!"

Comments

Re:I wouldn't hold your breathe.

[Zordak]

You're right. This was hardly a big victory for Buffalo:

On appeal, we affirm the district court's summary judgment rulings in all but one respect. With respect to the issue of validity, we uphold the court's entry of summary judgment that the '069 patent was not anticipated. We also uphold the district court's entry of summary judgment that the '069 patent was not invalid because of the addition of new matter to the application or because the asserted claims lacked a sufficient written description in the original specification. With respect to the issue of obviousness, however, we conclude that the district court erred by entering summary judgment against Buffalo because we hold that there was a disputed issue of material fact as to whether the prior art references that were before the district court were combinable in a manner that would have rendered the asserted claims of the '069 patent obvious. Although we vacate the summary judgment of obviousness, we have nonetheless addressed the issue of infringement, on which the district court entered summary judgment against Buffalo, because that issue will continue to be important to the ultimate disposition of the case unless the claims are held to be invalid for obviousness. As to that issue, we uphold the district court's summary judgment of infringement.

The district court found (on summary judgment) that the patent was not anticipated, valid, not obvious, and infringed. Even for the E.D. Tex., that's a lot to hold on summary judgment, and usually indicates it's a pretty blatant case. The Fed. Cir. upheld all of those findings except obviousness. It did not hold (contrary to the summary) that the patent was invalid. It held that there was an issue of material fact as to obviousness that the district court would need to try to a fact finder. If the district court finds, on remand, that the patent is non-obvious, then Buffalo loses.

I know there's a huge anti-patent sentiment around here, but patents are my bread and butter, and I tend to believe that there are such things as valid patents. I haven't looked at this patent specifically, but if somebody has a slam dunk argument for why the specific claims at issue are obvious, I'd honestly be interested to hear it. I hate obvious patent too---probably more than you, because I have to litigate against them, fighting the presumption that they're valid with lots of money on the line. But this sounds more like a case where a lot of people are upset that they couldn't get something they liked because it infringed a possibly-valid patent. That is really just the price we pay to have patents at all. Some of the people here will disagree with the whole concept(many will accompany their disagreement with vitriol and poor grammar). But I don't think that a trade secret-only world would be any better.

So somebody tell me, what is obvious about this patent? I'd be interested to know.

Re:Well...

[VorlonFog]

I've been reading this court document describing the recent decision this evening. IANAL, but it seems Buffalo has presented entirely reasonable and valid evidence for prior art. Additionally, CSIRO's '069 patent as originally filed specified the 10 GHz frequency range while 802.11 A/B/G/N transmissions occur in the 2.5 and 5 GHz ranges. It seems CSIRO in 1995 amended/revised their patent to remove the very specific 10 GHz reference and instead cited the more general term 'radio frequencies'. They also added new claims specifically cited in the Buffalo case. I've only read the first 25 of 40 pages, but IMHO Buffalo has presented a strong case to be reviewed more carefully than any summary judgment ever oculd. In other words, it's not so much "they aren't paying the inventors for their work" or stealing Intellectual Property. It's more like, "Buffalo presented a case the court summarily ruled against, and CSIRO is trying to enforce a possibly invalid patent." Read the document, and make your own decision. Then come back and post some more.