CSIRO Wins Wi-Fi Settlement From HP

suolumark writes "The CSIRO has won what could be a landmark settlement from Hewlett Packard over the use of patented wireless technology. The settlement ended HP's involvement in a four-year lawsuit brought by the CSIRO on a group of technology companies, in which the organisation was seeking royalties for wi-fi technology that is used extensively on laptops and computers worldwide. CSIRO spokesman Luw Morgan earlier said legal action was continuing against 13 companies: Intel, Dell, Toshiba, Asus, Netgear, D-Link, Belkin, SMC, Accton, 3-Com, Buffalo, Microsoft and Nintendo."

Comments

These guys aren't your normal patent trolls.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, folks: the CSIRO is fundamentally a research institution, first and foremost. They develop technologies, patent them, and then license the patents out to the manufacturing companies. Income from the patent royalties goes towards further research work.

They've done some genuinely fantastic work in a wide range of areas. Polymer banknotes are one of their products. Agricultural research. Marine sciences. They cover a very broad base, and are very much respected in Australia for the work they do.

Personally? I hope the CSIRO wins these battles. At least with this mob, I know the money will be going to further R&D, rather than flowing to the coffers of people who don't do anything productive for society (as happens with "real" patent trolls.)

Re:These guys aren't your normal patent trolls.

[russotto]

Remember, folks: the CSIRO is fundamentally a research institution, first and foremost. They develop technologies, patent them, and then license the patents out to the manufacturing companies. Income from the patent royalties goes towards further research work.

Unfortunately the patent they won here was for OFDM. Which was developed in the 1960s. Their patent claims were specifically limited to applications above 10GHz, but somehow or another they managed to prevail in court against manufacturers making devices in the 2-6 Ghz range. It's 100% BS.

Re:These guys aren't your normal patent trolls.

[jank1887]

"If patent law is like copyright law in the following regard..."

http://www.google.com/patents?q=assignee%3A+united+states+of+america

it's not. working at a government R&D lab, I can assure you we are encouraged to both publish and patent as much as we are able. Now, we have a nice filter in place to clamp down on patent applications that wouldn't even be worth the taxpayer dollars to maintain. But, we have a tech transfer office that actively pursues licensing patents, and will go after contractors that patent things that were invented under government contract. The gov't generally doesn't manufacture things, but right now the general notion is that if we've paid for technology once, we shouldn't have to pay to use it later if someone else patents it, and licensing fees can help recoup R&D expenditure. They also have a really nice dividend sharing structure with the inventors, which is rare in industry.

HP is an interesting case

[femto]

They are in the position of having made a contribution to research program on which CSIRO was a collaborator, and are now being asked to pony up to use the patent. To quote from the research paper:

Acknowledgments

The CSIRO Systems and Devices Hardware Program and the Hewlett-Packard External Research Grants Program funded Macquarie University research on the WLAN project from 1991-1996 and 1995-1996 respectively.

The patent (USPTO 5487069) was filed on November 23, 1993 and issued on January 23, 1996. HP contributed funding from 1995-1996, so I guess it can be claimed that they didn't contribute to the patent, but it's still got to leave a bad taste in the mouth. The point is that HP might be a special case and not indicative of the treatment other defendants might get. I'd be intrigued to know what Macquarie University's contribution was from 1991 to November 23, 1993 (which was before my time on the project).

(Yes, I'm one of the authors on the paper.)

Re:HP is an interesting case

[Anonymous Coward]

The Macquarie University involvement was led by Dave Skellern, and in 1993-1994 was based out of the Department of Research Electronics. They heavily contributed to the 802.11 standard.

This group incorporated as Radiata, and produced (one of?) the first 802.11a chipsets, the R-M11a. Radiata was acquired by Cisco in November 2000, for US$250M.

I worked in MQU DRE between 1993-94, and my recollection is that most of the funding came from CSIRO at the time. But it has been a long, long time.

Re:HP is an interesting case

[Anonymous Coward]

You are correct. I worked at CSIRO at that time - joining shortly after the patent was applied for. I knew all the people involved (two are still friends of mine) and they are a very good bunch of people. The guy at CSIRO driving the litigation is a bit of a dick though, and not well thought of, and I think that raises a few eyebrows around the place.

Also, Skellern is a smart guy, but a real little operator. I remember I did a whole lot of multipath channel simulation work, which I happily shared with his group at Macquarie. They published a paper heavily based on the work without any recognition (except a vague "thanks" to CSIRO). But he did the right thing in setting up OFDM IP licenses with CSIRO and they transferred on to Cisco. I might add he also did a lot of collaboration with HP - I think one of their early routers came largely from his group, and there was some test and measurement gear too.

Re:If the Shoe fits ...

[Anonymous Coward]

And that the relevant commitee did this on the expectation that the CSIRO would not enforce their patent.

Which apparently is exactly what happened.

Re:If the Shoe fits ...

[Anonymous Coward]

During the Wi-Fi standardisation, CSIRO's patented IP was knowingly included in the standard. CSIRO stated that they would be happy for this to happen, provided they could collect a small royalty on Wi-Fi hardware. Everyone seemed happy with this, and the standardisation occured.

Then manufacturers started producing hardware without paying CSIRO. Over the next few years, CSIRO repeatedly sent letters requesting royalties. They didn't have much luck.

In the end, after years of negotiation, they decided court action was required. This was a big step, since it required them to set aside a significant proportion of their budget to pay for legal costs.

They have a valid claim, and they've been more than reasonable.

Re:what, no fruit?

[femto]

Cisco has probably already licensed the patent. They bought Radiata Communications , the company which was set up to commercialise the results of the CSIRO/Macquarie University WLAN project, so licensing issues were probably dealt with then.

Re:How the fuck is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

As said by others, CSIRO was in there from the beginning asking for royalties. It only went to court after a decade of negotiation failed.

Re:How the fuck is this legal?

[walshy007]

No mention of patents

That you know of, the csiro has been contacting the companies producing these chipsets for quite some time, wanting royalties, only after years of refusal did they sue.

The question then becomes, is it legal to give someone infringing your patents ample time to sort out patent issues after contacting them before suing, I'd like to think yes.

Re:I hate patents

[renegadesx]

Actually its 802.11a and 802.11g

Re:How the fuck is this legal?

[batkiwi]

You don't have it right. The patents were mentioned in the process, and CSIRO has been contacting companies for YEARS. They only filed the lawsuits when they finally realized these companies were never going to pay up.

Re:How the fuck is this legal?

[Max Littlemore]

In 2005, company files lawsuit across huge base of manufacturers ... <ranty-rant-rant>

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!

No, sorry bluefoxlucid, CSIRO is not a company. And as others have already replied, yes it is legal the companies were told about the infringement and been given plenty of time to cough up.

Now I know it's part of the fun of /. to get all up in arms at the sniff of a patent troll, but in this case there isn't one. RTFA and do a wiki search for CSIRO. Then come back and post a "meh" or something.

Re:How the fuck is this legal?

[tick-tock-atona]

Here's the patent. And it's pretty damn comprehensive. The patent was filed for in 1993, and granted in 1996.

As in the report here (2000), CSIRO attempted to license the tech and recieve royalties but then in 2005, big tech companies didn't want to play ball anymore.

I say, good work CSIRO - screw these guys for every penny and keep on conducting your groundbreaking research.

Re:Suing the wrong people

[kelnos]

Nope, responsibility for paying royalties usually falls with the last link in the chain before the customer. It's not unheard of for the chip manufacturers to pay for licensing and then include the cost of that licensing in their chip cost to the OEM, but in my experience the OEM usually handles royalty payments.