Wi-Fi Patent Victory Earns CSIRO $200 Million

bennyboy64 writes "iTnews reports the patent battle between Australia's CSIRO and 14 of the world's largest technology companies has gained the research organization $200 million from out of court settlements. CSIRO executive director of commercial, Nigel Poole, said the CSIRO were wanting to license their technology further, stating that he 'urged' companies using it to come forward and seek a license. 'We believe that there are many more companies that are using CSIRO's technology and it's our desire to license the technology further,' Poole said.'We would urge companies that are currently selling devices that have 802.11 a,g or n to contact CSIRO and to seek a license because we believe they are using our technology.'"

Comments

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[some_guy_88]

Don't forget that CSIRO are a research organisation like PARC to pick an example in the USA.

Nobody likes a patent troll but I'd rather see CSIRO win a case like this than say Microsoft or IBM.

Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Pat on the back for CSIRO. One of the ways government-owned research organizations can expect to survive is by monetizing inventions - when companies like Lucent, Buffalo, Linksys, Apple etc. all make a killing off this stuff and didn't invest in its development it is only fair they are forced to pay up.

Re:Only fair

[dark_requiem]

If it's a government-owned research organization, what right do they have patenting it? Government-owned implies tax-funded, which means that the costs have already been shifted to the general public. How is it legitimate to force people to pay for research and then deny them access to the results? And to preempt those who will bring this up, yes, you can argue that corporations aren't "people", but they are groups of people. Besides which, if a single individual wanted to hack together some wifi cards and sell them to a few people, they would still technically be infringing on the patent, and thus be as liable as a corporate entity.

Re:Only fair

[rigolo]

when companies like Lucent [snip] .. didn't invest in its development it is only fair they are forced to pay up.

mmmm did Lucent (or actually AT&T or actually NCR) not invest in the wifi development?? You beter check your history books. Wi-Fi was "invented" and developed by Lucent/AT&T/NCR in the Netherlands in 1990. They were the first to bring a WiFi product to the market. So you can not claim they did not invest in it's development.

Re:Only fair

[Barny]

Ok then, this should be fun :)

So lets put a tax, oh about $2 should do, on any N class wireless device sold outside of Australia, the results would be more favorable to the CSIRO (an Australian tax-payer funded research group) I think.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

So as an Australian taxpayer I have to subsidise foreign wifi users?
Wake up.

Re:Only fair

[Znarl]

The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO) is funded by the Australian tax paying citizens.

It is legitimate for Australians to be rewarded for research they paid for by in the form of licensing fees from the rest of the world.

Re:Only fair

[XDirtypunkX]

If governments invest tax money wisely, then they get a return on that investment and we have to pay less taxes (and the next piece of technology can be developed). It's not like these corporations aren't making money off the wireless technology someone else developed.

Besides which, of these large corporations, how many are Australian? How do Australians benefit from more of their money flowing out of the country for technology they paid to develop?

Re:Only fair

[tpgp]

Government-owned implies tax-funded, which means that the costs have already been shifted to the general public. How is it legitimate to force people to pay for research and then deny them access to the results?

You missed a few pertinent words in your question Let me add them for you - they make the answer obvious.

How is it legitimate to force Australian people to pay for research and then deny American & European Corporations access to the results?

Re:Only fair

[ozmanjusri]

Government-owned implies tax-funded, which means that the costs have already been shifted to the general public.

The Australian general public paid for it.

American companies are exploiting it (and charging Australians premium prices for it).

Do you see why Australians might like to see an organisation which has been funded by us, and will return benefits to us, receiving the profits of their invested capital rather than the money going to organisations which have no connection to the Australian general public?

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I understand it makes perfectly sense. By getting some money from another source you can lower the money the tax payer has to put into the organization. The net result is a lowering of tax payers cost.

So - in stead of people that never use this technology are paying for the research, the research cost are now payed by the people that DOES use the technology.

Seems fair to me....

Re:Only fair

[rtfa-troll]

So as an Australian taxpayer I have to subsidise foreign wifi users? Wake up.

Right; It's totally unfair. After so many things were invented by Australians which everyone else benefits from. The motor car; the transistor; the windmill; money; even the wheel. It's time the Australian tax payer got their fair pay back for being the main driver of invention in the world.

Re:Only fair

[HiThere]

I believe it's Australian. Why should anyone who isn't Australian have the right to use that patent without paying the license?

(I pretty much agree with your basic argument, but not with the details. If the Australian's paid for it with taxes, then there's a good argument that they should be able to use it without paying patent license fees. This argument, however, doesn't work for someone living in, e.g., the US though.)

A different argument would assert that this entire class of things shouldn't be patentable. I'd be hospitable to that kind of an argument, but "the devil is in the details". I *don't* think the same work should be covered by any two of patent, copyright, DRM. Saying that no patents should be valid, however, is a bit further than I'm willing to go without further evidence. (I *would* go so far as to say, for the US, all patent laws should be thrown out, all extant patents should be invalidated, and the patent system should be recreated from scratch, with no monopoly granted by the patent. Some other mechanism is needed to reward inventors. A royalty seems reasonable, but I can't figure out how to justly set the worth of an invention for such a royalty.)

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, see, now Australians paid for CSIRO and its research with their taxes, and now they will be paying CSIRO that extra $2 "patent tax" anyway.

Wait, you didn't actually think those royalties were going to come out of the licensing corporations' profits, now did you? Heh-heh. No, they will do what they always have -- pass on the cost to the consumer; i.e., the taxpayer.

In the end, the taxpayers (as a group) get the shaft.

The only way government research organizations should be able to hold patents is *IF* they only receive money through the licensing of said patents, rather than taking taxpayer revenue (including corporate taxpayers). The moment tax revenue is taken as a funding source, patents resulting from it should either be disallowed, or perpetually licensed to the public, royalty-free. Otherwise, it is a conflict of interests.

Regardless, the validity of the patents is not really in dispute.

Re:Only fair

[BikeHelmet]

Different country, my dear friend!

And getting money back for that technology will reduce the bill to the taxpayers in the future.

Re:Only fair

[im_thatoneguy]

Maybe because the Tax Payers of Australia don't want the tax payers of the United States, China, Singapore, Germany, France etc... to benefit without paying taxes towards the research?

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

If they tax every router and all that money goes to Australia, it seems only non-Australian taxpayers get the shaft. While the Australians could have the $2 built into their price as well, their government is getting not only that $2 but the $2 from everyone else. Which means they could lower taxes on Australia.

Re:Only fair

[atmurray]

You make the fatal mistake that unless your Australian, you probably didn't fund the initial research. So to put your question back on you, if your tax dollars weren't spent developing it, what right do you have to use the technology for free?

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the Hills Hoist... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hills_Hoist

Re:Only fair

[bertoelcon]

How is it legitimate to force Australian people to pay for research and then deny American & European Corporations access to the results?

I restate your question like this:

How is it legitimate to force American & European people to pay for research and then deny Everyone Else access to the results?

That is how the internet has worked for years. So analogously it works.

Re:Only fair

[kiddygrinder]

The CSIRO are under a lot of pressure to generate their own revenue and become more self funded and i don't really see how it's immoral to generate revenue from more than one stream just because some of your cash-flow comes from the taxpayer. Also it's probably worth bringing up that this is Australian tax money, and none of these corporations have paid any tax that might make them eligible for the idea that they've already paid in some way for the right to use it.

Re:Only fair

[Eskarel]

Well, as an Australian taxpayer. It isn't really about the taxes I paid, it's about the taxes that the companies being sued didn't pay.

If an Australian company(or even a foreign company with a certain amount of presence here) wants license the technology they should get it for free. They are, after all, paying Australian taxes, and creating Australian jobs, all of which is good for Australia.

Companies who don't have a certain amount of presence here, aren't paying taxes here, or creating jobs here, can pay for the license. This provides the dual advantage of giving more funding to the CSIRO(which is good), and providing an advantage to companies who provide an advantage to Australians.

It'd be neat if Australians could get the kit $2 cheaper, but I'm happy to pay the extra $2 and give a leg up to folks who want to create jobs here.

Re:Only fair

[tg123]

....................

Right; It's totally unfair. After so many things were invented by Australians which everyone else benefits from. The motor car; the transistor; the windmill; money; even the wheel. It's time the Australian tax payer got their fair pay back for being the main driver of invention in the world.

I know your being sarcastic but ...

PAYUP as an australian tax payer I would like to
get my money back for

"Black Box" flight recorder
Aircraft Navigation (DME)
Penicillin (production in commercial amounts)
Cochlear implant
Contact lenses (long wearing)
Anthrax Vaccine
Heart Pacemaker
Relenza (flu medication) .......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_measuring_equipment

http://www.questacon.edu.au/indepth/clever/100_years_of_innovations.html

Re:Only fair

[sortius_nod]

Wow, nice sarcasm, and well pointed, because Australians have invented nothing at all...

Re:Only fair

[MrMr]

Interesting viewpoint. How much does Oz contribute to DARPA for the use of internet?
Or to England for Penicillin?
Or for any of the thousands of inventions funded by non-Australian citizens?
But that would actually cost money, so that cannot possibly be fair.

Re:Only fair

[Viridae]

Cervical cancer vaccine.

Re:Only fair

[tg123]

You make the fatal mistake that unless your Australian, you probably didn't fund the initial research.
So to put your question back on you, if your tax dollars weren't spent developing it, what right do you have to use the technology for free?

please define free.

Re:Only fair

[Starayo]

HAHA, oh man, that's fantastic.

1995 - Jindalee Radar System - The United States of America spent $11 billion developing stealth aircraft that could not be detected by radar. Scientists at the CSIRO concluded that if the plane could not be detected, perhaps the turbulence it makes passing through air could be. $1.5 million later, the Jindalee Radar system had transformed the stealth bomber into nothing more than an unusual looking aircraft.

Re:Only fair

[Barny]

Nice find. /me sits down to spend the next few hours reading about a good chunk of the stuff this nation has pioneered

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

So to put your question back on you, if your tax dollars weren't spent developing it, what right do you have to use the technology for free?

You're absolutely correct! Now, using the same reasoning: Since what became the Internet was initially developed by DARPA in the 60's, the citizens of the United States of America demand that the rest of you deadbeats pay us for the initial research.

Now, let's see how fast this gets modded "Troll", even though it's not intended to be.

You make the fatal mistake that unless your [sic] Australian

I just have to ask: What is it with all of the Australians here that don't know the difference between "your" and "you're"? Seriously, you're the third one I've seen so far. Well, it's good to know that it's not just the US public education system that's producing ignoramuses.

Now *that* was a troll.

Re:Only fair

[Jimbookis]

There was an article on the ABC show Catalyst last week. Apparently 802.11g/n has its roots in radio astronomy. You can see the boffins for real on these vodcasts: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/geo/catalyst/catalyst_2009_ep29.mp4 http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/geo/catalyst/catalyst_2009_ep29.wmv

Re:Only fair

[technobok]

Regardless of the validity of your point, penicillin probably isn't a good example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Walter_Florey

Re:Only fair

[Jimbookis]

I agree with you on who implemented the original concept. I had a pair of those super long 8-bit ISA cards myself. CSIROs patents pertain to the methods used to make 802.11g/n viable which use different modulation techniques to ye olde Wavelan and 802.11b.

Re:Only fair

[skirmish666]

You're not suggesting that:

• The internet is an invention
• Penicillin is under patent & wasn't developed for medical application by a German & an Australian as well as an English man
• Non-Australian inventions aren't sold for profit (often paid in part to the patent-holder of said invention)

Are you?

Re:Only fair

[eggnoglatte]

First of all, government owned does not imply 100% tax funded. In fact it is a common model for applied research institutes to have their government funding tied to licensing and other external income as an incentive for those institutes to do practically relevant research. So for example they may have 50% of their annual budget from the government, and the rest from other sources of income. And of course, whatever money they make on this won't be distributed among shareholder, but re-invested into future projects, thus creating jobs. That is the model used in research institutes around the world, and it has arguably been exceedingly successful in producing industry-relevant applied research (basic research is a different story).

Secondly, even if the work was 100% government funded, it would still benefit Australia to have this patented and licensed, even if it means they individually have to pay a few bucks more for the devices. That is because there are many more of these devices sold outside Australia than within. Therefore, Australia has a net benefit.

It's called macro economics. Then again, you are not alone on /. in ignoring that particular branch of economics and trying to run whole economies like the neighborhood grocery shop.

Re:Only fair

[sambo1]

Um Australia had a lot to do with penicillin's use in fact. http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/australia_innovates/?behaviour=view_article&Section_id=1030&article_id=10033 Try again please. Yes I'm Australian - helping you lot defend the world pretty well unnoticed. Even from yourselves.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

> Interesting viewpoint. How much does Oz contribute to DARPA for the use of internet?
> Or to England for Penicillin?
Well they did contribute one of the inventors.

Re:Only fair

[rolfwind]

Pat on the back for CSIRO. One of the ways government-owned research organizations can expect to survive is by monetizing inventions - when companies like Lucent, Buffalo, Linksys, Apple etc. all make a killing off this stuff and didn't invest in its development it is only fair they are forced to pay up.

All those companies don't pay taxes or their employees don't?

In WW2, the government nullified many radio patents to get the innovation going real fast. They can also don't have to follow patents internally, since patents are a monopoly protection they give to companies - not an inherent right.

But will the same government now copyright everything they do as well (government written stuff is public domain)? And what about various genome projects that are government funded? I fear that sticking it to a company or three will be very expensive in the end.

We already have far too many publicly-funded universities trying to make everything propietary.

Re:Only fair

[MrMr]

One Australian who was on a UK payroll 11 years after the discovery is enough to claim eternal benefits?
I think you made may point only stronger.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

As it happens, that's exactly what happens. Australians buy a product that utilises an invention created outside Australia that has, presumably, been patented worldwide. The manufacturer pays a royalty to the patent holder; this royalty is paid by the Australian purchaser of the product, as part of the purchase price.

Penicillin is a non sequitur; the patent on it expired years ago. Similarly DARPA. In exactly the same way, once the patent underlying 802.11* expires, the royalties payable to CSIRO will no longer be necessary.

Re:Only fair

[sFurbo]

I came across a proposed way of doing just that some years ago: http://www.slate.com/id/68674/
Basically, every time a patent is granted, an auction is performed over the patent*. Now, 9 times out of ten, the government pays the one who applied for the patent the winning bid*, and the patent is released into public domain. 1 time out of ten, the highest bidder pays, and gets the monopoly. So, the one who applied to the patent gets what the market thinks it is worth. He can bid in the auction himself, and have a chance of getting the monopoly. Plus, capital investment is not necessary to get paid for having a good idea.

* To make sure the one who applied for the patent doesn't bid the auction up, it is made as a third-bid-auction, i.e. the one who bid the highest wins, but pays the third-highest bid. That way, you need 3 entities in cahoot to throw the auction (but the details is in the article I linked to). Oh, and the third bid is of course lower then the first, but that lower price is offset by the bidders bidding a bit higher than they would have in a first-bid or second-bid auction.

Re:Only fair

[misnohmer]

Are you saying that any products shipped to Australia do not require licensing or royalties from CSIRO? Or, are you saying all Australian companies don't have to pay? Or are tax funded research results not available for free to the tax payers (who paid for it) down under?

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

The patent system means that Australians pay for all of these inventions - as long as they were patented.

Re:Only fair

[muffen]

You missed a few pertinent words in your question Let me add them for you - they make the answer obvious. How is it legitimate to force Australian people to pay for research and then deny American & European Corporations access to the results?

Yes because Australians are paying other countries for their tax-funded inventions right?

Taking this path is scary, I think it's the wrong move and I hope it will come back and bite the aussies in the behind.
You are happily using inventions (many of them medical saving Australian lives) created by tax-money in other countries yet when you have such an invention you want money for it. Where is the fairness in that?

Re:Only fair

[Xiaran]

Hmmm... I thought we were still supposed to be keeping this a secret(Im an ex Australian DoD type)... you may be interested to know that the technology investment in Project Jindalee(BTW Jindalee means bare bones - a commentary on the funding situation from what I understand) is now used in over the horizon radar on Australia's north coast.

Re:Only fair

[cheekyboy]

And how much does USA sell its pharma medicines to the rest of the world? Billions in profits there dude.

How about sony charging 40% more in australia than usa.

Its about time USA paid, its not the magic genie that can only invent things you know.

Re:Only fair

[adamkennedy]

It's not a secret we have it, but there is a formal promise to the Americans we absolutely won't tell anyone else how we did it.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

The development of penicillin for use as a medicine is attributed to the Australian Nobel laureate Howard Walter Florey together with the German Nobel laureate Ernst Chain and the English biochemist Norman Heatley.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the discovery that penicillin could be adapted to use as medicine was ALSO made by an Australian (Howard Florey)!

In any case, there is presently a kind of hegemony of patents almost entirely within the USA, with enormous resulting economic flows from most other countries to US companies, amounting to many billions.

This is one of a very few patents of current economic significance in IT outside the US that has been supported by the US courts - and if you've examined the patent it's far more a true invention than most of the patents discussed on slashdot.

Re:Only fair

[tpgp]

Yes because Australians are paying other countries for their tax-funded inventions right?

Yes, they are.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, so let's meet half way; We'll stop charging for Wireless, if you stop charging for the thousands of inventions funded by non-Australian citizens.

Re:Only fair

[LoRdTAW]

Did you bother to read the actual Jindalee Radar System article? Or was the poorly written brief description on the Australian Invention article enough for you? Whoever wrote that nonsense was clearly trying to bash the American military or perhaps America itself. From the actual article:

It is also reportedly able to detect stealth aircraft; aside from the fact that most stealthy aircraft are optimized for defeating much higher-frequency radar from front-on rather than low-frequency radars from above, JORN is reputedly able to detect aircraft wake turbulence.

Nothing mentioned about the 11 billion spent or the actual ability to detect stealth aircraft.

Re:Only fair

[tg123]

........

All those companies don't pay taxes or their employees don't?

In WW2, the government nullified many radio patents to get the innovation going real fast. ............

my understanding was that Edwin Armstrong (Inventor of FM radio amongst many other things) handed the all of his patents to the US government during world war II.

You may be referring to world war I.

1942:With US in midst of World War II, Armstrong gives U.S. government all FM patents for free.

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/empire/timeline/

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that the Australian Howard Florey was one of the recipients of the 1945 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his part in the extraction of penicillin I think it's fair to say that penicillin is a bad example of what Australia owes England. Oh, and the other two recipients were Alexander Fleming (Scottish) and Ernst Chain (German).

Though to be fair they were working at some obscure English university. Oxforge or something like that.

Re:Only fair

[MrMr]

That was exactly my point. Inventions made by non-risk capital investments (like state funded reserach) should never be eligible for patenting.
The original argument to allow the illegal monopoly is that the investors want a guaranteed return to fund the research. That does not hold if the research is funded without those investors.

Re:Only fair

[Myopic]

That sound reasonable but difficult. What would be your threshold for how much activity a company has to have within your country?

Re:Only fair

[molog]

Umm, the drugs you are talking about were developed by the pharma corporations, not a US tax payer funded research lab. If you have an example of something that was developed in such a facility and is patented which you are paying royalties for you would have a very strong counter example. As it stands, you are off topic and missed the point.

Molog

Re:Only fair

[Myopic]

Yeah, I can see what you are saying, but I guess my opinion is that I support a robust and useful public domain, and assuring the freedom of publicly funded research is an essential part of that. I'm less interested in making fine-line distinctions about who deserves to get something for free than I am in bolstering human ingenuity.

Re:Only fair

[Myopic]

Yeah, maybe. For me it's not an issue of "rights", it's simply a matter of share-and-share-alike. I would rather have greater and more widespread technology than I would a tightly regulated royalty system.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

"Or for any of the thousands of non-patented inventions funded by non-Australian citizens?"

There, fixed that for you.

By the way, Promethus' descendants didn't get their fire license fees from you last month. You want your cigarette lighter to keep working, you better pay up, sonny.

Re:Only fair

[sabs]

Because US companies, are Robber Barons disguising themselves as greedy industrialists.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

If they tax every router and all that money goes to Australia, it seems only non-Australian taxpayers get the shaft. While the Australians could have the $2 built into their price as well, their government is getting not only that $2 but the $2 from everyone else. Which means they could lower taxes on Australia.

Haha... you must be new to this. No, the government will spend all that money on something that is of no use to anybody, but will show the voters that they bring home the bacon. Say, a cane toad museum for Sydney. Then, once the money's gone, the museum is still there, needing funding, so they have to raise taxes, because it's a monument, you see...

Re:Only fair

[Gudeldar]

I think you are a selling Alexander Flemming short. Perhaps Flemming should have patented his discovery of the antibacterial properties of penicillin and then sued Florey for infringing on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming

Re:Only fair

[Gudeldar]

Yes and as an American taxpayer I would like my money back for things like the Internet, GPS, etc.

Re:Only fair

[ufoolme]

It developed a very nice wifi solution, in something like 6months and they did it as pure research. Do you need more legitimacy ?
The money they've (imho) rightly got will go back into pure research. To develop idea and theories now, that will be hopefully as useful as wifi. You don't want useful things?
As an Australian citizen don't you think I want my research organisation to be given its due?
Everyone had access to there results as they published it, I can only find an 18page patent "Wireless LAN John D. O'Sullivan et al". I'd hazard a guess there has been a dozen more journal articles as well, just like any other important research - that was publicly funded.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

CSIRO winning the patent doesn't really help Australians as one might think. The companies involved in this patent that do business in Australia, will simply raise the prices on their infringing technologies. Unlike some of you might assume that the tax payer is benefiting from the infringement, you're really not. If three companies raise the price by $2 USD ($1 for the losing this case and $1 for future licenses) and sells three of the devices to 5,000,000 Australians a year, then in five years Australians will have paid not only the lawsuit off, but for the technology they invented-- twice (once through taxes and another through licenses).

In the short run, CSIRO wins and tax dollars can be appropriated to something else for the government, but in the long run, the tax payers lose by funding the same invention 2x. If this were a private organization that created wifi chips, then the economy would have been stimulated by the win; however, since this CSIRO are a government own organization, not much will come out of this except a few more research positions and maybe another secretary.

I don't see CSIRO as a patent troll. They actually are trying to produce something (intellectual contribution counts as something). And I don't think the licenses that they negotiate will be excessive. If they were, then a work-around will just be created; and in 10 years, the technology they created would be worthless.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

And where would you use this wi-fi, if the Americans hadn't given away the internet concept / tools / utilities / patentable materials???

Think about it....

Re:Only fair

[onepoint]

Wow, what world do you live in. This is all a business, if I discover something, I look to profit from it. Now if the government funds my project, I have to cut them in to the action. If I work for the government, and I discover something, let them profit, it secures my job.

If your statement was valid, then all the multinationals would have offices in the USA just to get to the governments discovery. ( this did happen from 1947 to 1956ish, when we started making the nazi's WW2 patents public, the russians would go and copy each filing daily).

I want my government to do R&D, then sell the results to the highest bidder.

GO DARPA!!!

Re:Only fair

[sg_oneill]

Hmm. As an aussie, I gotta say, $200mil is piss money as far as this govt is concerned, but its horror money for a small aussie start up business.

I love the govt spending my tax on science. better that then blowing up poor brown folks, but even better is that my tax money is spent on science for the benefit of all mankind. Thats an excellent use of tax in my opinion.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting viewpoint. How much does Oz contribute to DARPA for the use of internet?
Or to England for Penicillin?
Or for any of the thousands of inventions funded by non-Australian citizens?
But that would actually cost money, so that cannot possibly be fair.

wank wankety wank wank wank

Re:Only fair

[HiThere]

Circumstances alter cases. If development required a lot of up front investment, then there needs to be a reliable way to recoup that investment, plus a bit of extra, because any "recouping" is speculative, and also discounted because it's later.

OTOH, patents shouldn't prevent others from inventing things separately, and then using the invention without paying the original inventor. (But how to prove independent invention can sometimes be quite difficult.)

Re:Only fair

[HiThere]

I don't think anything that establishes a monopoly is a good solution, no matter *HOW* you go about establishing the monopoly. Some different way needs to be developed to recompense inventors who make their inventions public. OTOH, when patents are written in such a way that they aren't useful to practitioners of the art covered by the patent, then I don't see ANY justification for the grant of a patent of any kind. And if the laws are such that the practitioners don't dare look at the patents, then there is equally no justification for the existence of patents.

Re:Only fair

[SleazyRidr]

Pretty sure the patents on those have expired by now. If I recall my history corectly, the rest of the world wasn't even allowed in for quite some time.

Re:Only fair

[MasterOfMagic]

Gotta love the editing on Wikipedia, coupled with a sick sense of humor:

1984 - Baby Safety Capsule - Babies in a car crash used to bounce around like a football. In 1984, for the first time babies had a bassinette with an air bubble in the base and a harness that distributed forces across the bassinette protecting the baby. New South Wales public hospitals now refuse to allow parents take a baby home by car without one.

Re:Only fair

[rtfa-troll]

You should try to compare with the Chinese (note they even keep their "discoveries" on a separate page) USA (likewise) or, to pick another random country in the list, Indian inventions lists. Hell, even the tiny country of Scotland (5M people) has more inventions that Oz (22M people).

Now I'm not sure that "number of inventions" is a measure of the worth of a country or even number per person per year. Probably having the most ancient still living art tradition is a greater contribution to humanity. However, it's pretty clear that other countries make their state inventions available for all (especially the USA). Australia should not feel it is being hard done by with everybody stealing it's IP when in fact it benefits from sharing much more than it loses.

Re:Only fair

[Xiaran]

Settle down guy. My father worked many year in Au DoD and it is a bit of a running gag in those circles.... that the US invested all that money and our little OTHR can detect it. You are, like, aware that Australia and the United State a very strong allies and all. I heard about the test... the US sent out stealth aircraft and they were detected. I was a bit taken aback by the wake turbulence bit cause I thought that gave away a bit too much detail.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, the US made the web. SO everyone else should pay a fee to make programs that use the web.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

What would be your threshold for how much activity a company has to have within your country?

Why not just establish that any portion of the license fee can be paid as salary to an Australian working domestically. If they employ 1 Australian at $100k/year, they get a $100k/year discount on what they would normally have to pay to license the technology. If they employ a thousand Australians at that salary, they get up to a $100m/year discount.

If Australia's tax authority is anything like the IRS, companies will have to report all employee earnings, so it should be pretty easy to arrive at a total dollar amount spent on wages.

Re:Only fair

[irtza]

Bristol-Meyer-Squibb - a new york company getting federal help: http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/taxol/

novartis (not even a US company) benefitted from US gov money while developing imatinib:
http://medicynic.com/2008/03/04/generics-on-the-rise-get-glivec-gleevec-in-india/
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/01/26/stories/2006012601150500.htm

Here is some reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh-Dole_Act - look specifically at the ritonavir section

Definitely not trolling, but missing the mark. The drugs only cost that much in the US - the rest of the world gets fairly fair prices from US/non-US pharma companies benefiting (sometimes indirectly) from US government funding.

Re:Only fair

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that this is a not very well thought out argument. I agree that much of CSIRO's funding comes from the Federal Government via taxpayer contributions. BUT and this is a big BUT, if research organisations like CSIRO can be less dependent on Government funding which is the desire of all research organisations then the tax payer wins. Universities in all jurisdictions that I am aware of are dependent upon some government funding and yes this includes the US. Their funding source may be via the National Science Foundation or through Defence research funding. Irrsepctive of the source of funding the commercialisation of the results benefits all including the taxpayer. The difficulty for universities and the like is that too much of thier IP is either lost in the ether because it is not properly identified or there is a failure to commercialise even though it has been identified. Good on you CSIRO.

Re:Only fair

[bandmassa]

What right? The right vested in them by the Parliament of Australia, bound in the act which establishes the CSIRO to develop science and technology for the benefit of the Australian people. CSIRO's annual budget isn't all that big, most of its research is funded by patent licences and royalties. Australian taxpayers benefit by being a source of science an technology on a world scale, by having brain-rich universities and by attracting world-class minds to our research centres.

Re:Only fair

[rtb61]

Easy, the threshold could quite simply be measured by employment levels and, export offsets. Thus generate sufficient export income and use that income to employ locally and a patent licensing credit could be provided. Personally I would prefer that when ever the government gets involved in research, that the research be done upon an open patent basis ie, any subsequent patents based upon that patent are also bound the original open patent licence and other countries governments, companies as well as individuals could all contribute to achieve worth while technology more rapidly but that technology would also be far more accessible.

Are patents worth it?

[plague911]

Ya the idea has been beat to death but the article made an interesting comment ".'We would urge companies that are currently selling devices that have 802.11 a,g or n to contact CSIRO and to seek a license because we believe they are using our technology.'" One of the arguments for patents is that it encourages individuals and firms to innovate in order so they can receive a financial gain via a patent. But what about the situation where you are accidentally violating a patent. Yes this is a very slippery slope situation but really is there any advantage to society to preventing an entity from using something they would have re-invented any way

? A example of another way would patents could be held to mitigate this would be. That the patent holder has all rights to sell and license a technology however a co-inventer who developed the technology independently has the right to produce and sell goods and services using the technology. Like I said its a slippery slope but patent law is already complicated enough so its just a drop in a bucket

Re:Are patents worth it?

[horatio]

Are they worth it? How many great inventions are not coming to market, either because of fear of being sued or because some asshole is sitting on a patent for the one thing you need to make your new invention work - and if you try to make anything even resembling his widget, boy you're in deep shit? How much more expensive are everyday products we buy because of patent trolls? This really isn't that much different than malpractice lawyers (ambulance chasers). Doctors have to get insanely expensive insurance because you know some dumbass is going to sue you for something really stupid and the trial lawyer is going to take 60%+ of the extortion money.

Seems the same when developing *any* tech these days. It is a damn mine field. Some obscure firm or individual is going to come out of the woodwork *after* the technology is common place, and claim they have a really vague patent on some really obscure sub-assembly that just happens to be critical to your invention - which you came up with, completely unaware anyone else had any similar ideas. I don't know that this is the case here specifically, but it seems like this is the operating procedure for patent trolls.

So companies like Intel, IBM, etc have to spend insane amounts of money - passed onto us in the form of higher unit costs - patenting sometimes really stupid things so no one can sue them, and hiring armies of lawyers to either try to defend the company from trolls or waste time trying to figure out if the hanging chad which really is nothing like joe troll's patent your researchers dug up, could come back to bite the company in the ass.

Look, I get that inventors aren't going to always have the capital to build something now, or the manufacturing capabilities, so it takes time to get either one of those things together to get your invention from concept to product. But for crying out loud, to claim damages for patent infringement, shouldn't you have to be able to actually show that you lost something, that you have damages, that you at least have paperwork demonstrating your effort to bring your product to market? Isn't that the point of a patent, so that you have the right to market your idea without someone stealing it? These asshats who are nothing more than shell organizations and no assets beyond a cellphone and a patent portfolio are ridiculous.

It saddens me to think that if the patent system was as screwed up today as it was when Edison and Westinghouse were vying to bring electricity to homes, we'd all still be sitting in the dark - because the discovery/inventions would have been lost to the energy of fighting over patents, and probably still be tied up in litigation.

Re:Are patents worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA!

Who's the asshat now? At least be smart enough not to log in when you're not going to even read up about the issue at all before posting a comment.

Re:Are patents worth it?

[MrMr]

How much more expensive are everyday products we buy because of patent trolls
Or because of legitimate patents: A patent is designed to increase the price of a product to the highest possible level the market can bear.
For drugs this means a 1000% mark-up at least, based on the price drop if drugs go 'generic'.

Re:Are patents worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

So we just rip ideas off those who are creative enough to come up with them and pay them nothing? Just to satisfy YOUR wallet?

CSIRO now in budget surplus

[bennyboy64]

It was also the first time the research organization had seen a surplus in its financial reporting http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26209952-12377,00.html

Re:CSIRO now in budget surplus

[MichaelSmith]

Don't spend it all at once...

Re:CSIRO now in budget surplus

[Chuck Chunder]

It was also the first time the research organization had seen a surplus in its financial reporting

Er, the article you linked to says it's the biggest ever and twice the size of last years, not the first surplus ever.

The interesting (to me) figure in the article is that they have increased the number of scientists employed by 6% over the last 5 years, bringing it to a total of 1837. We hear a lot about the "brain drain" so it's nice to see growth in scientific support.

Re:CSIRO now in budget surplus

[bennyboy64]

You're right.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Bilestoad]

Idiocy. CSIRO is nothing like a patent troll. CSIRO developed the technology...

Re:Patent trolls

[scjohnno]

Can someone please justify why we should consider the CSIRO to be a patent troll? They are an actual research organisation (a taxpayer-funded one at that); they don't exist just to file patents and make claims on them. Why are people dismissing them as trolls?

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Cryacin]

Yup. Isn't this *EXACTLY* why patents *REALLY* should exist? Hi - we've developed and tested a new technology, here it is, and here is how to use it. Please pay us money for the privilige.

Good on them, and hopefully we'll see some more great work from them in the future.

Re:Patent trolls

[nickd]

Except that they aren't patent trolls - they are the Australian Government's science organisation - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), they have been in this battle for quite a while.

Read up on the WLAN stuff here http://www.csiro.gov.au/science/wireless-LANs.html

Then get back to us when you think that inventing wireless networking technology is easy and doesn't warrant the possibility of being patented.

Re:Patent trolls

[sc0ob5]

Because they have no idea perhaps?

Speaking of trolls

[Jeremy Visser]

Isn't this an indication that the system is severely flawed when someone pops up very late to the table and claims that they own it?

[...] Softwares and methods are too easy to re-invent all over again, and who can tell if a certain solution has been available before and then silently put to the grave for one reason or another?

Speaking of trolls, you are one yourself. Before you mod me into oblivion, hear me out.

In your post, you seem to claim that (1) CSIRO is a patent troll; and that (2) the patent is a software patent, thus is unethical. Both claims are patently false. (ha ha)

For starters, to address claim (1), CSIRO is not a patent troll. What is a patent troll? A patent troll is an organisation that exists only to accumulate patents (and make a profit off royalties). CSIRO is not a patent troll! They are an Australian Government-funded organisation that does real research. They actually researched and patented the technology back in the early '90s. (Source)

To address claim (2), the patent in question is not a software patent! Thus the entire basis for your argument...

Softwares and methods are too easy to re-invent all over again, and who can tell if a certain solution has been available before and then silently put to the grave for one reason or another?

...is completely baseless. The patent in question covers the duplication and redundancy of radio waves, so it is obviously not a software patent. Basically the patent covers the way modern WiFi works, in that instead of serial (just one radio wave with error correction), parallel and redundant streams are sent, which allows you to have much greater bandwidth without losing the reliability. (And yes, that source again)

Re:Speaking of trolls

[ajs]

CSIRO is not a patent troll. What is a patent troll? A patent troll is an organisation that exists only to accumulate patents (and make a profit off royalties).

I've tried to make this point, here in the past as well. The responses that I got indicted that there are many Slashdot readers who think "patent troll" is what you call someone who tried to defend a patent in court, irrespective of a) their involvement in the actual invention or b) the defensibility of said patent.

As far as I can tell, this is just backlash from folks who don't understand the patent system as it's intended to protect actual inventors of non-obvious technology, and see actual patent trolls manipulating the system for outrageous gain. I can understand the frustration, there, but it's clearly not a rational approach.

Re:Speaking of trolls

[MichaelSmith]

The nicest example I have heard of patents working the right way is the Rolling Loop IMAX Projector. The IMAX developers actually went to Ron Jones's home in Western Australia, looked at his prototype projector and pretty much bought his patent on the spot.

Re:Speaking of trolls

[rtfa-troll]

That is actually very cute. It's worth looking at the patent where any layman can actually get the gist of what the invention is and does by just looking at the pictures let alone reading the text. The contrast with most software patents where you don't have a clue what the invention is even after reading in detail and even if you are an expert in a nearby area couldn't be stronger.

Re:Speaking of trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

At the time of the patent's filing, CSIRO's implementation was a burst mode implementation. This means all the processing was done on a PC in non-real time, by software. Short bursts of data were then transmitted with long periods of silence in between, The hardware simply took the sample buffer and transmitted (and received) it verbatim. It wasn't until after 1995 that an FPGA based implementation was done by Macquarie University. Chips came later, around 1998 to 2000, done by Radiata. CSIRO's patent is on the WLAN baseband processing algorithm, not the hardware of the radios.

The point is that the patent was on an algorithm, not a physical thing. These days, most "hardware" devices are in reality quite simple (and unpatentable) with all the smarts in the software.

Re:Patent trolls

[Chuq]

Are you referring to the CSIRO, or the people posting here who claim they [the CSIRO] are patent trolls? :P

Re:Desire to license

[Chuq]

but because the name is too close to CISRO that it would confuse a jury
 
... looks like a jury wouldn't be the only one confused.

Re:Desire to license

[Chuck Chunder]

Noticeably absent from the list of defendents-to-be: Cisco. Not because they aren't infringing on any patents,

Cisco aren't on the list because they already have a licence for the tech for which they pay royalties.

Re:Desire to license

[fluffy99]

Cisco is absent because they are a valid licensee. http://wifinetnews.com/archives/2008/10/different_interpretation_of_buffalo_csiro_patent_appeal.html

Re:Patent trolls

[Canberra Bob]

Can someone please justify why we should consider the CSIRO to be a patent troll? They are an actual research organisation (a taxpayer-funded one at that); they don't exist just to file patents and make claims on them. Why are people dismissing them as trolls?

Because it's slashdot. You would be lucky for the majority of posters to read the the summary let alone any background info. Congratulations to the CSIRO for their success on this - in spite of having their funding savaged. Though the technology was patented in 96 so the r+d was possibly done before it became a target of budget cuts.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[enoz]

From TFA:

HP, Apple, Intel, Dell, Microsoft and Netgear bringing cases against CSIRO in an attempt to have the research organisation's patent invalidated.

Does anyone else think these companies are the real trolls?

Re:Desire to license

[BikeHelmet]

So CISCO was using CSIRO technology without licensing it? Shame!

wifi allergies

[hydromike2]

ah, so I should be sending CSIRO the medical bills for my wifi allergy shots!

Re:wifi allergies

[biovoid]

If you have an allergy to your wifi, you shouldn't have married her.

Re:wifi allergies

[Therefore I am]

Those imaginary diseases are tough to cure. You start with the head first and rigorously apply a sycamore mallet. 12 to 15 good shots usually brings permanent relief. If not, then there is the road-roller treatment. Most feel a little flattened after that.

Re:Desire to license

[BikeHelmet]

That certainly helps explain their router prices! Good to hear of a company doing it the proper way. Many companies try to only respect IP law when it benefits them.

Re:Patent trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

because.. if they're taxpayer funded, then the information belongs to the public.. to ALL, including those who have companies that could use the technology. corps pay taxes too.

Desire to troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Obvious troll is...
obvious

in spite of having their funding savaged?

[Chuck Chunder]

n spite of having their funding savaged

Er, according to this article:

With government funding boosted for the fifth year in a row to $668.1 million,

What "savaging" are you talking about?

Re: in spite of having their funding savaged?

[Sabriel]

I'm not sure, but he may be referring to (A) the eight years between 1996 (the patenting year) and 2004 (when the funding boost mentioned in your citation began), and/or (B) actual R&D being cut at the same time the PHBs get big raises: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/csiro-to-slash-support-funding/418253.aspx?storypage=0

Re: in spite of having their funding savaged?

[Anonymous Coward]

the funding cuts back in 96 when the libs came to power... fscked if im looking up a source for you

Re: in spite of having their funding savaged?

[canajin56]

Well, when Obama increased the defense budget, all of the news networks announced as "Obama brutally slashes defense budget, America's future in grave danger." He probably is using the same criteria ;)

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[ozmanjusri]

Does anyone else think these companies are the real trolls?

Duh.

Though the way so many American companies have been allowed to transform themselves into brutal, antisocial organisations speaks more of a failed regulatory climate than an inherent failure of the businesses themselves.

Re:Patent trolls

[drkwatr]

Why? I would say in my opinion, because there isn't anything "novel" about what they did. I'm sorry if a person can create the same thing independently of, and never having read or seen anybody's work then how innovative is it? I have recently managed to create a completely reconfigurable computer complete with an I/O bus (which is what allows physical pins to be remapped via software) with nothing more than a high school education. I imagine though somewhere out there is some fancy research facility being well funded to do exactly that. There is nothing magical about what one person does people; anybody can do anything. I won't pay them squat. I will simply quit using anything WiFi for the time being. I think there is something better out there we could use, and besides if it isn't using radio then we don't need any stinking licenses from the FCC. =)

Re:Patent trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

The real issue is that some idiot at IEEE wrote a wireless spec that violated this patent. Wonder if CSIRO was involved in that at all...

It's like the goddamn Rambus bullshit all over again.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[baboo_jackal]

Totally, because those companies are completely cutting into CSIRO's wireless networking hardware business. My CSIRO wireless router is awesome, and it works great with the CSIRO wireless car-

Oh, wait...

Only paid for by the Australian tax payer

[Chuck Chunder]

And even then I suspect most Australian tax payers would like CSIRO to fund itself to the degree it can and would think it reasonable that the actual users of a technology would pay where that is feasable.

Alternatives to 802.11a,g,n

[LoudMusic]

What do you bet there are a few alternatives coming down the pipe soon? IBM, Apple, Intel, everybody coming out with the 'better wireless networking' technology.

Re:Alternatives to 802.11a,g,n

[David at Eeyore]

Since being able to patent a novel technology (and reasonably claim some reward by licensing, as CSIRO has done) is what drives others to develop even more novel technologies which can be patented and licensed for reward and so on...

I wouldn't assume that it will be necessarily IBM or Intel or the cult fruity computer co. that will come up with the next great innovation.

Re:Alternatives to 802.11a,g,n

[biovoid]

Develop an alternative - easy.

Making it a standard when a standard already exists that is supported in thousands of devices and established infrastructure - hard.

Particularly if "IBM, Apple, Intel, everybody" all come out with different alternatives. Won't happen.

Re:Alternatives to 802.11a,g,n

[Chuck Chunder]

What do you bet there are a few alternatives coming down the pipe soon?

Given how long "N" took to reach standardisation I'd be surprised if any alternative happened "soon".

Re:Patent trolls

[scsirob]

Dit they get an assignment from the public to research and develop this technology?

In other words, was this developed for the greater good of humanity, or because someone had an itch??

Re:Patent trolls

[Llian]

Yet you missed the fact its AUSTRALIAN. Sure, lets give AUSTRALIAN corps free access, and charge US and EU corps double because we want to be asses

Re:Patent trolls

[jibjibjib]

Wow, you have no fucking idea. You didn't even get through the first sentence of the summary.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Cassius Corodes]

So how do research organisations exist, if not by licensing their research outcomes?

how is this fair?

[jipn4]

Government-owned organizations are paid for by taxes. Why should I pay once for the invention by taxes and then again through licensing fees?

Re:how is this fair?

[timmarhy]

so you pay tax in all the countries wireless gear is sold? fail!

Re:how is this fair?

[tg123]

Government-owned organizations are paid for by taxes. Why should I pay once for the invention by taxes and then again through licensing fees?

Its my taxes buddy (assuming your not australian) and I would like you to pony up the cash.

Re:how is this fair?

[Anonymous Coward]

so you pay tax in all the countries wireless gear is sold? fail!

Good to see that late 20th century American idioms have finally found their way to the Outback.

Re:how is this fair?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't want to pay royalties to CSIRO dont buy the LUXURY devices

The wifi device isnt exactly bread and milk.

Every dollar CSIRO makes from foreign buyers adds to research in Australias interest in horticulture flora and fauna and health
the real kicker they will achieve more with less of your tax dollars

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[jipn4]

They are nothing alike. PARC is a private, corporate research lab. CSIRO is a public, government funded organization.

can you explain?

[jipn4]

I'm not so sure. It's not my area, but this patent sounds like it might be an engineering solution, a simple application of known techniques, instead of an invention. The fact that a standards body decided to use this technology (either not knowing about the patent or deliberately ignoring it) also suggests that this is not actually a new technology.

Can you explain what you think is novel and unobvious about this technology?

Re:can you explain?

[Gerzel]

To be honest, nothing really. Many patented technologies had multiple "inventors" working on very similar lines towards basically the same goal. Sometimes hours is the difference between one person getting the patent and another not.

The patent, similar to copyright, ideally is a trade-off for society. Society gives up the right to use readily available knowledge to the developer of a particular set of knowledge and in return hoping to give incentive for greater knowledge to be developed. In other terms patents, and copyright and other IP laws generally allow for inventors/artists/creators to profit from their creations and thus hopefully use those profits in order to make more creations.

However, recently the cost to society for keeping IP in private hands has been overlooked. The benefit of IP laws in general is real, but they must have moderation.

Re:can you explain?

[bh_doc]

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2708730.htm

If you're lucky, this might work in your region.

Re:can you explain?

[SlashWombat]

At the time of its invention, it was not a simple application of known techniques. Now many digital transmission schemes use similar techniques. So yes, they deserve some credit for the invention. (The reason it wasn't mainstream before this is due to them using a CSIRO FFT hardware chip, something that wasn't really around until chip manufacturers/designers achieved the miniaturization necessary for its implementation. The FFT wasn't even described as a mathematical process until early 1960.

Re:can you explain?

[Viridae]

*gives up the right to use it for a time, in exchange for free access once the patent has expired - thats the other thing about patents, the invention is described in full meaning that when it does expire any man or his dog can replicate the technology without having to conduct the research.

Re:can you explain?

[FireFury03]

the invention is described in full meaning that when it does expire any man or his dog can replicate the technology without having to conduct the research.

Many modern patents are vague enough to make it extremely difficult (at best) or impossible (at worst) to implement the technology from the patent documentation.

Whilst I agree that in principle patents are a nice idea, I think in practice the pros are usually outweighed by the cons (whether they be for physical stuff, software, etc.).

A fundamental problem with patents is that they don't deal with independent invention at all: If you develop something and I use your invention then it is fair enough that I should pay you for this work, since it either cut my development costs (assuming I would otherwise have invented the same thing myself), or it actually enabled me to produce something (if I couldn't have come up with the invention myself). However, if you invent something and I independently invent the same thing without any knowledge of your invention then I shouldn't be required to pay you, since your work has not in any way helped me. Of course, proving independent invention is next to impossible.

For example, if I'm developing a product, and I come up with a microcontroller design to be embedded in that product, there is no reasonable expectation for someone else to know about that design, even if I've patented it. There *may* be some merit in allowing patents on ideas used in whole products though, rather than small components of a product.

Re:can you explain?

[Teancum]

I can name two "traditional" inventions in the 19th Century (just off the top of my head) that had nearly identical patent applications that arrived within a day or two to the USPTO:

• Aluminum Refining - This is the current electro-synthesis process that cheaply extracts this metal from raw ores. This one was literally the difference of a single hour in terms of getting to the patent office.
• Telephone - Alexander Graham Bell dodged a bullet on this one. He is even a classical "textbook" inventor often described in glowing light about how patents are so useful to society and why they are necessary.

Yeah, I'd say that simultaneous patent applications are a serious problem, and patent law doesn't really deal with research efforts where obvious areas of research are looked at by multiple individuals.

At least in terms of copyright, if two authors come up with similar topics and submit the books to the library of congress at nearly the same time, all that happens is that the books get classified with the same catalog number (mostly) putting them on the shelf next to each other. The copyright is completely in force for both books (presuming one author didn't plagiarize the other in a blatant manner).

Re:can you explain?

[FireFury03]

Yeah, I'd say that simultaneous patent applications are a serious problem, and patent law doesn't really deal with research efforts where obvious areas of research are looked at by multiple individuals.

It isn't really "simultaneous patents" which are the problem - you shouldn't *have* to patent your invention to avoid getting sued by someone who invented and patented theirs at the same time.

In fact, it isn't even "simultaneous" inventions which are the problem - it's simply the fact that you shouldn't be expected to pay another inventor just because you happen to come up with the same thing independently. If you invent something and then 10 years later I invent the same thing with no knowledge of your invention then I shouldn't be expected to pay you, since the existence of your invention hasn't helped me in any way, and I would still have come up with it even without your work.

For popular "whole products", such as the telephone, the vacuum cleaner, etc. it might be unlikely that someone wouldn't have knowledge of the existing invention, but patents are frequently taken out for innovative designs of minor components within a product, for which there should be no expectation of people knowing about them. Not to mention all the really trivial stuff that gets patented. It has got to the point where, for many patents, developing something is actually less time consuming than searching for a suitable patent to see if someone already developed it (with no guarantee that you'll find anything, so may have to expend the time developing it anyway). And many legal departments will tell people that they must not actively search for existing patents since that can land you in deeper hot water than if you just went ahead and unknowingly infringed a patent.

Re:can you explain?

[Anonymous Coward]

this patent sounds like it might be an engineering solution, a simple application of known techniques, instead of an invention.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean, you peanut? Any invention [that works] applies the laws of physics.

Re:can you explain?

[Hognoxious]

If you invent something and then 10 years later I invent the same thing with no knowledge of your invention then I shouldn't be expected to pay you

Since it's impossible to:
  a) travel back in time,
  b) read minds,
  c) prove a negative,

such a system would be completely unworkable.

Re:can you explain?

[lorenlal]

Indeed. That's why parent used the word "shouldn't." We shouldn't need to worry about this sort of thing... We do because we don't have a better solution at this time.

Re:can you explain?

[nahdude812]

Of course, proving independent invention is next to impossible

I'm guessing this is a big part of why they don't honor independent simultaneous invention. It means that if you had a mole in a competitor's development space, they could secretly feed you enough data that you can reproduce the invention cycle on your own with only a slight delay.

Disregarding the inability to authenticate independent invention; if two inventors did have a patent on the same invention, then licensing becomes a bidding war for which inventor will offer a lower licensing cost. One of the main purposes of a patent is to allow an inventor to recover the cost of research & development; now these inventors would instead be in a position where they were trying to minimize loss.

Re:can you explain?

[Migraineman]

It's unworkable, agreed. However, I find it unfortunate that we as a society don't value more than a single path to a solution. If I create a Cardboard Transmorgrifier, only to find out that some guy named Calvin beat me to the USPTO by a few hours, our society declares my efforts to be worthless (or worse, infringing where no infringement occurs.)

Given the current copyright and patent shenanigans that are in-play, I'd rather take my chances with no such system in place. How am I supposed to benefit from an inventor's time-limited monopoly if it doesn't expire until after my death? I am supposed to benefit from this deal, right?

Re:can you explain?

[Hognoxious]

Garbage. If someoene can't be bothered to check whether something already exists before inventing it, then he's a fool.

Re:can you explain?

[FireFury03]

such a system would be completely unworkable.

Isn't that what I already said?

Re:can you explain?

[FireFury03]

Garbage. If someoene can't be bothered to check whether something already exists before inventing it, then he's a fool.

1. Most lawyers will tell you absolutely not to do a patent check because there can be serious legal repercussions to doing so.
2. How do you propose finding out whether something has already been patented? There are a *lot* of patent applications, sifting through them to discover whether or not your invention (or a component thereof) has already been patented would be prohibitively costly for all but the largest of organisations.
3. At where do you draw the line? Are you going to go through the time and expense of (2) for every little trivial idea you come up with? There are a huge number of patents for stuff so trivial and obvious that most reasonable people wouldn't expect to be patentable.
4. Assuming that you actually mean "exists" rather than "is patented", how do you propose determining absolutely whether something unpatented exists? This is orders of magnitude more costly and less reliable than the already infeasible task of searching patent applications.

Re:can you explain?

[noundi]

In fact, it isn't even "simultaneous" inventions which are the problem - it's simply the fact that you shouldn't be expected to pay another inventor just because you happen to come up with the same thing independently. If you invent something and then 10 years later I invent the same thing with no knowledge of your invention then I shouldn't be expected to pay you, since the existence of your invention hasn't helped me in any way, and I would still have come up with it even without your work.

By that logic I shouldn't be able to get sentenced for a crime I didn't know was unlawful. The bullet you're presenting can easily be dodged by saying that it's every inventors responsibility to look for existing inventions before setting sail, just like it is every citizens responsibility to check for laws before committing a crime.

Re:can you explain?

[FireFury03]

I'm guessing this is a big part of why they don't honor independent simultaneous invention. It means that if you had a mole in a competitor's development space, they could secretly feed you enough data that you can reproduce the invention cycle on your own with only a slight delay.

It works both ways - the mole could provide enough information for the competitor to actually get ahead and file a patent before the company that did most of the work. There are plenty of cases where this has happened.

Disregarding the inability to authenticate independent invention; if two inventors did have a patent on the same invention, then licensing becomes a bidding war for which inventor will offer a lower licensing cost. One of the main purposes of a patent is to allow an inventor to recover the cost of research & development; now these inventors would instead be in a position where they were trying to minimize loss.

With the existing "single inventor" model, one of the inventors basically gets to charge whatever they like (even to the point of making it prohibitively expensive to licence, so that they can keep the invention for just their own products, keeping competition out of the end-user market as well), whilst the other inventor makes *nothing*, or worse - the other inventor gets sued.

I think the "multiple inventors" model would work better, whereby you take a risk and if it doesn't pay off everyone gets to minimise their losses, as opposed to the "single inventor" model whereby you take a risk and if it doesn't pay off you're utterly screwed.

Re:can you explain?

[FireFury03]

By that logic I shouldn't be able to get sentenced for a crime I didn't know was unlawful. The bullet you're presenting can easily be dodged by saying that it's every inventors responsibility to look for existing inventions before setting sail, just like it is every citizens responsibility to check for laws before committing a crime.

Your argument is ridiculous - criminal law and patents are there for different purposes and can't be compared as you have attempted to do. Criminal law is there to protect society and giving people incentive to know the legalities of their actions is good for society. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be a lot of social good to come out of forcing people to spend vast amounts of time and money checking to see if they are allowed to use what they have invented and throwing it in the bin if they aren't.

Also, criminal law changes very slowly compared to the huge database of patents, so it is much more reasonable to expect someone to know the laws than the patents.

Re:can you explain?

[VojakSvejk]

Actually, the FFT was described by Gauss in about 1805 (google "fft gauss"), but wasn't generally known until Cooley and Tukey rediscovered it.

Re:can you explain?

[noundi]

By that logic I shouldn't be able to get sentenced for a crime I didn't know was unlawful. The bullet you're presenting can easily be dodged by saying that it's every inventors responsibility to look for existing inventions before setting sail, just like it is every citizens responsibility to check for laws before committing a crime.

Your argument is ridiculous - criminal law and patents are there for different purposes and can't be compared as you have attempted to do. Criminal law is there to protect society and giving people incentive to know the legalities of their actions is good for society. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be a lot of social good to come out of forcing people to spend vast amounts of time and money checking to see if they are allowed to use what they have invented and throwing it in the bin if they aren't.

Also, criminal law changes very slowly compared to the huge database of patents, so it is much more reasonable to expect someone to know the laws than the patents.

It seems you misunderstood me. I'm not comparing law and patenting per se, I'm merely presenting the idea of why it can be reasonable to expect inventors to be aware of their environment by presenting other aspects of society where this occurs -- e.g. in law. After all it is a business oriented occupation, and just as any business oriented occupation you need to understand the business you're in. Your allies, your competitors, your investors etc.
 
Also patents expire, while laws don't unless changed. As an inventor you would generally only need to keep yourself updated about the still valid patents. I really don't see why this is so unreasonable to you.

Re:can you explain?

[FireFury03]

Also patents expire, while laws don't unless changed.

This is one of the reasons why it isn't reasonable to expect people to know what patents may apply - laws are relatively unchanging whereas there are many thousands of patents being filed and expiring every year.

As an inventor you would generally only need to keep yourself updated about the still valid patents. I really don't see why this is so unreasonable to you.

So you are going to do a full check across the many thousands of patent records covering your subject area, every time you come up with an idea, no matter how trivial? Yeah, coz that's going to really help your development cycle...

Re:can you explain?

[Hognoxious]

How am I supposed to benefit from an inventor's time-limited monopoly if it doesn't expire until after my death? I am supposed to benefit from this deal, right

You are supposed to benefit from it. The problem is, you don't want anyone else to. Waaagh, it's not fair.

Let's say I invent an awesome new engine. Due to [insert technobabble] it costs 500 bucks more to make than an existing design. But it's so much more efficient that it will save you 2500 bucks in fuel over its lifetime.

If my license fee is 500 bucks per unit you're still 1500 better off than if I'd just sat on my butt.

Re:can you explain?

[Duradin]

You're a patent lawyer, aren't you?

Given the vagueness of patents, there probably isn't anything left to invent that relies on current understandings of physics or reality.

And a programmer would get nothing done if he had to check every method to see if it wasn't already patented.

Re:can you explain?

[noundi]

Also patents expire, while laws don't unless changed.

This is one of the reasons why it isn't reasonable to expect people to know what patents may apply - laws are relatively unchanging whereas there are many thousands of patents being filed and expiring every year.

As an inventor you would generally only need to keep yourself updated about the still valid patents. I really don't see why this is so unreasonable to you.

So you are going to do a full check across the many thousands of patent records covering your subject area, every time you come up with an idea, no matter how trivial? Yeah, coz that's going to really help your development cycle...

First of all: people? So all of a sudden everybody is an inventor? You're making silly assumptions, inventor is an occupation -- and yes you can be a hobby inventor and you can be a hobby electrician, for the latter you still need to have a license to make installations without voiding your insurance. My point is that this is not for anybody, and just like you need to have certain understandings in any occupation, understandings of patents within your line of inventions (let's not forget that if you're inventing a kitchen appliance, you only need to research about existing kitchen appliances, you can skip anything else) is not at all an unreasonable amount of information to learn.
 
It seems to me that you're just making mountains out of molehills.

Re:can you explain?

[Migraineman]

No, no, no ... I'm not talking about the cost benefit of using someone's patented technology. I'm talking about the fundamental contract (and it *is* a contract) between patent/copyright recipients and we-the-people. In exchange for the time-limited monopoly, the subject matter shall fall into the public domain at the end of the monopoly term. How do we-the-people benefit from patents and copyrights that don't expire in a useful amount of time (i.e. my lifetime)?

Re:can you explain?

[FireFury03]

First of all: people? So all of a sudden everybody is an inventor?

Not everyone, but a high proportion of the professional population are.

inventor is an occupation

Not really. Pretty much anyone working in a creative technical field will be "inventing" on pretty much a daily basis. Many (but not all) of these "inventions" are fairly trivial, but still patentable. We're talking about things like electronic circuits, microcontroller designs, etc. I.e. the stuff that "normal people" in the technical fields do *all the time*. Software developers are also coming up with new ideas pretty much all the time - if they aren't then they're a pretty crap software developer, and with the advent of software patents many of these "inventions" are patentable too.

So given this, to suggest that someone must perform a patent search (which will take weeks and almost certainly won't have 100% coverage) every time they come up with a new invention (every few days) is insane.

let's not forget that if you're inventing a kitchen appliance, you only need to research about existing kitchen appliances, you can skip anything else

Untrue. If you're inventing a kitchen appliance, you need to research other kitchen appliances, then you need to research all the technologies that go into your kitchen appliance. This could include patents on electronics, patents on various mechanical designs used within the appliance, etc. You may not consider the tiny low-level implementation details to be especially novel but that doesn't mean that someone else didn't, and if they did you open yourself up to getting sued.

Re:can you explain?

[drinkypoo]

I think the only logical solution is to define the maximum length a patent should ever have been, set that as the term for the oldest patents, and then create an algorithm defining their subsequent term lengths which approaches zero as we approach the technological singularity. This provides the maximum patent protection while ensuring the minimum ongoing negative impact on the rate at which scientific progress occurs without need for further legislation.

Re:can you explain?

[noundi]

Not everyone, but a high proportion of the professional population are.

Look -- I don't want to be rude and I know I won't be able to hinder myself when you pull these kinds of things out of your ass. This is my last post since there is obviously no point in continuing this. All I can say is that nobody I know is an inventor, and as far as I know of those I know know no inventor. And your word isn't good enough for anybody with half a brain and a handfull of source criticism.

Untrue. If you're inventing a kitchen appliance, you need to research other kitchen appliances, then you need to research all the technologies that go into your kitchen appliance. This could include patents on electronics, patents on various mechanical designs used within the appliance, etc. You may not consider the tiny low-level implementation details to be especially novel but that doesn't mean that someone else didn't, and if they did you open yourself up to getting sued.

By kitchen appliance I of course also meant the parts of kitchen appliances, such as e.g. electric motors etc., as these are also a part of the patent. Look either you're trolling and desperate to win this nonsensical argument or you're not very clever. Either way I have no gain in continuing this.

Re:can you explain?

[nahdude812]

It would lower the barrier to espionage. You wouldn't have to beat your competitor to the market with their invention - which although this does happen, it's hard because you still have to get it to a patentable state without the benefit of having the minds in your employ which are producing the invention. So under the best circumstances you are still under a tight timeline (unless your competitor is delaying patenting, as happens for example in the pharmaceutical industry where the time between patenting a product and being able to sell that product is consumed by years of preclinical and clinical trials and regulatory approval periods).

Simultaneous invention clauses would let your competitor then even wait a month or two after you patent it to identify issues with your implementation that only appear when you start to put the product to real world use. Then they file their patent, and potentially lock you out of fixes to your own product when they make the case that invention of the fixes could not have been simultaneous because you only produced them in response to real world use, while their version had it all along (as their extensive though forged documentation proves).

How much time is too much time for independent invention to no longer matter? 1 year, 5 years? Anywhere within my patent life span someone could show up claiming independent invention and undo my patent. Two non-colluding inventors owning the same patent would effectively mean there was no patent.

I could go on. Letting two inventors own the same space has a lot of issues beyond just defeating the fundamental principles of patents. The point is a guaranteed limited monopoly in return for sharing the details of the technology with the world. Two competitors in the same space is not this.

Re:can you explain?

[FireFury03]

Look -- I don't want to be rude and I know I won't be able to hinder myself when you pull these kinds of things out of your ass.

Huh?

All I can say is that nobody I know is an inventor, and as far as I know of those I know know no inventor.

I guess you don't know many people in the technical field then. Whether you call them an "inventor" or not, whenever someone comes up with a new idea, that is an "invention" and is probably patentable. So you're basically saying you don't know anyone who's come up with a new electronic circuit design, microcontroller, bit of software, etc - you may be telling the truth and you really don't know anyone who's come up with an original independent idea, no matter how trivial; the majority of technical professionals are not in your position, and _do_ come up with new ideas and designs for stuff, as do most of their colleagues.

I know a number of electronic engineers who have got patents for stuff like microcontroller designs, which were developed as components for products. None of these people are "inventors" in the traditional sense of someone who does nothing but spend their time coming up with off-the-wall ideas and then trying to push them to market, but they have "invented" stuff all the same, as their patents prove.

And your word isn't good enough for anybody with half a brain and a handfull of source criticism.

I don't understand what you're talking about here. I've given a number of real-world examples to back up my points and you've done nothing but basically say "you're wrong" without any explanation as to why you think I'm wrong.

By kitchen appliance I of course also meant the parts of kitchen appliances, such as e.g. electric motors etc., as these are also a part of the patent. Look either you're trolling and desperate to win this nonsensical argument or you're not very clever.

You see, you're now changing your argument - you started off saying that you would only need to know about a very small subset of patents regarding kitchen appliances. Now you're saying that you need to know about an enormous number of patents regarding all the technologies used in kitchen appliances too. This is no longer a small collection of patents, so you claim that inventors can reasonably be expected to know about all these patents seems to be bunk.

Re:can you explain?

[SleazyRidr]

Many modern patents are vague enough to make it extremely difficult (at best) or impossible (at worst) to implement the technology from the patent documentation.

That's a failing in the way the system is implemented. If the patent has so little information in it that somone with the necessary skills couldn't pick up thier tools and build one, the patent should be refused.

However, if you invent something and I independently invent the same thing without any knowledge of your invention then I shouldn't be required to pay you, since your work has not in any way helped me. Of course, proving independent invention is next to impossible.

That one's a slightly pricklier issue. Perhaps some sort of patent-sharing could be implemented, so even though they didn't help each other, both inventors get a cut. In short; the patent system needs to be fixed, not abandoned.

Back on the original topic; it's really great news that the CSIRO has won this case, because they do a lot of good work, and I have the utmost faith that this money will go towards the next innovation on which they are working.

Re:can you explain?

[EvanED]

How do we-the-people benefit from patents and copyrights that don't expire in a useful amount of time (i.e. my lifetime)?

Copyrights, yes. Patents, no. Patents last for 20 years (except in limited cases). Unless you're near retirement, you probably don't have to worry about a new patent lasting beyond you.

Re:can you explain?

[bkaul01]

It isn't really "simultaneous patents" which are the problem - you shouldn't *have* to patent your invention to avoid getting sued by someone who invented and patented theirs at the same time.

You don't have to patent it yourself if you want it to be available to everyone; it's sufficient to challenge his patent application and prove that you did it first. You only have to patent it yourself if you want the right to control whether others can use it. It's not the timing of the application that determines which inventor deserves the patent, but documentation of the timing. Now if it truly was simultaneous (or nearly so), an argument could be made that it shouldn't pass the non-obviousness test ...

Re:can you explain?

[bkaul01]

Documentation of the timing of when you invented it, that is.

Re:can you explain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely an invention. A number of research teams (not Australian) involved in telecommunications had been trying and failing to solve the wifi problem at the time the CSIRO team made their breakthrough. Interestingly the CSIRO team was not initially trying to create wifi as such, they were trying to solve a problem in data analysis for radio astronomy.

More info if you care at:

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2708730.htm

Re:can you explain?

[Grieviant]

Don't think so. Regardless of whether the FFT had been invented before the 1960s, it's an understatement to say it has been in widespread within the science, math and engineering communities since then. It really wouldn't have even been considered new technology in the 1970s. Not sure if any of its more recent flavours (such as FFTW) have ever been patented - after all, they're all just efficient implementations of the DFT, which has been around much longer.

The communications technology used by Wifi, which makes heavy use of the FFT, is Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). Of course, OFDM / multicarrier modulation had also been around long before CSIRO ever filed their patent, so you'd have to off your rocker to claim any novelty there either. And yes, I'm quite confident it was deployed in real world communication systems before 1996.

So what's left? You say CSIRO's FFT chip was the key to the patent. Are you sure there weren't any FFT ASICs floating around before 1996? I'd be extremely surprised if that were the case. In fact, I'd be (slightly less) amazed if OFDM specific ASICs weren't around before 1996.

After skimming the patent document, it seems their main claim to fame is high data rate wireless networking. They freely admit that wireless LANs achieving up to 3-6 Mbps were already available from Motorola. So, basically, they provided a higher data rate solution using OFDM, which was already well-known to be a viable solution for frequency selective channels (which typically arise when using large bandwidths). We could probably have a fruitless, drawn-out argument about whether there is really any novelty here or just a small extension of existing technologies.

Re:can you explain?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the case of simultaneous applications, that multiple applications were received should be prima facie evidence that the invention is obvious and so not deserving of a patent.

In fact, maybe that's a reform the patent system needs? If a conflicting patent application is received during the period of secrecy after filing, then neither patent will be granted as the simultaneous independent inventing means that the invention is obvious.

Re:can you explain?

[dbIII]

It's not entirely a new technolgy since CSIRO has been working on WiFi since the 1980s. Why should that prohibit them from patenting any improvements on their existing body of work?

Re:can you explain?

[Anonymous Coward]

no, society is supposed to benefit from this deal.

Re:can you explain?

[FireFury03]

You don't have to patent it yourself if you want it to be available to everyone; it's sufficient to challenge his patent application and prove that you did it first.

Yes, because *everyone* can afford to do that when a huge multinational decides to sue them.

Re:can you explain?

[Gerzel]

We the people don't. But they the patent holders and they the politicians do. The first through profits from the monopoly the second through donations, lobbying and what otherwise might be known as general bribery.

Re:can you explain?

[Gerzel]

Indeed the patent system is relatively fair comparatively. At least major gaffs will only cost the people 20 years...at least in theory.

Re:can you explain?

[Gerzel]

I think a big part of "fixing" the patent system is in the US at least, to hire more examiners. The system in many ways is just overloaded.

Anonymous

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous troll is...
anonymous

read up on the history

[jipn4]

Wireless networking was developed by amateur radio operators, not by CSIRO. By the time CSIRO filed its patent (1996), you already could buy WLAN hardware commercially. CSIRO patented some specific techniques that happened to be present in several standards, but it's not even clear whether what they patented is an engineering solution (not patentable) or a true invention (patentable). That's why companies decided to challenge their patent in court.

Re:read up on the history

[Viridae]

It didn't happen to be present in several standards. It was made the standard after they invented it. Huge difference that.

Re:Patent trolls

[Canberra Bob]

Hint: the very first line of the summary is "iTnews reports the patent battle between Australia's CSIRO and 14 of the world's largest technology companies has gained the research organization $200 million from out of court settlements." Now how much US taxpayer funds do you think have been involved in this?

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[jipn4]

CSIRO exists because it's publicly funded. It's publicly funded because it's supposed to benefit the public and create research results usable by everybody.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, CSIRO is a "national science agency". I'm not blaming the guys running CSIRO, just pointing out that there are other ways to fund national science agencies...

Everybody?

[Chuck Chunder]

This details precisely what CSIRO is supposed to do. Note that 8a refers to Australia rather a lot.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[bzipitidoo]

The patent system is the troll.

A non-adversarial way of promoting the advancement of the arts and sciences would remove the basis for these sorts of wasteful, expensive court fights, just for starters. No one would have to fear being sued by trolls or threatened by huge patent portfolios. Wouldn't have to weigh whether using hundreds of tiny little ideas, even those ideas one came up with independently, is worth the risk.

Re:Patent trolls

[bill_mcgonigle]

Can someone please justify why we should consider the CSIRO to be a patent troll? They are an actual research organisation (a taxpayer-funded one at that); they don't exist just to file patents and make claims on them. Why are people dismissing them as trolls?

Because in this case they went after independent invention, a standard late in the process, put good vendors out of the market in certain jurisdictions (e.g. Buffalo in the US) and generally dragged down 802.11n for years.

This wasn't for the public good, which is what government organizations are supposed to do. Heck, I'd wager Australian businesses alone lost more than $200M over the course of several years due to their lawsuits. So, add 'self-defeating' to the list.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Chuck Chunder]

That brings up a somewhat interesting question. Personally I prefer an independent research institute who'll licence their patent to anyone for a reasonable fee than a company who'll use a patent to create a monopoly for their own product offerings.

Re:Patent trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

The location doesn't matter. If the taxpayer paid for it, I think the taxpayer should be able to use it.

Grammar has a purpose

[Strange Ranger]

From the summary, doesn't it bother anyone that Nigel Poole isn't the director of anything. He's the director of an adjective or adverb. "Director of Commercial".

Director of Commercial WHAT? Commercial Espionage? Commercial Litigation? Commercial Applications of Research? Or maybe he's Director of Television Commercials? Who can tell?

Re:Grammar has a purpose

[Chuck Chunder]

His actual title appears to be "Executive Director, Commercial". They all seem to be phrased that way, presumably so the "Executive Director", "Group Director" etc bits of the title are all up front, rather than being buried at the end of lengthy domains like "Human Resources, Safety and Sustainability". As such it's really "Commercial Executive Director", which isn't so bad.

Re:Grammar has a purpose

[BlackPignouf]

Well seen!

You're the king of grammarly!

Re:Grammar has a purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

He obviously directs short television advertisements.

Re:Grammar has a purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

Who wasted more keystrokes, him or you?

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Anonymous Coward]

fucking A

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[adona1]

Yeah..........unless you're developing weapons, it's often hard for science agencies to get government funding as a guarantee...

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[MrMr]

Hi - we've developed and tested a new technology with your tax money, here it is, and here is how to use it. Please pay more money for the privilige of using what was yours already.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[amorsen]

From my cursory reading, it appears that the technology was independently rediscovered. As far as I know, this isn't a defence in patent cases (except if you discovered it first but didn't publish), but IMHO that should be changed. If you actually gain from using a patent it makes at least some sense that you should pay, but if you independently develop something without knowing about the previous patent, you're just being punished for not being lucky.

I can see plenty of problems with changing this, but I doubt it can make patent cases all that much more complicated.

Horraay!

[MrKaos]

for Fast Fourier Transform and multi spectrum rf echo cancelation!!!

Re:Patent trolls

[draco664]

The location doesn't matter. If the taxpayer paid for it, I think the taxpayer should be able to use it.

Er, what?

Are you suggesting that, as a taxpayer in one country, I should have access to and use products and services paid for by another country?

What the fuck are you smoking, because it sure as hell needs to be made illegal.

TCP/IP's history

[melatonin]

It's a valid patent? How does it compare then if BSD patented their government-funded work?

Re:Patent trolls

[Starayo]

Hahaha oh wow. Thanks for reinforcing stereotypes. :D

Re:Patent trolls

[Starayo]

And I'm pretty sure CSIRO's experiments on puppies!

I can make shit up too. Fuck off, they deserve to be paid for their contribution to technology today. CSIRO has made some amazing developments and licensing their discoveries is an excellent way to get more funding, as long as they're not charging absurd amounts.

Re:Patent trolls

[Viridae]

Cool, so you don't mind if I leach off your country's social security then do you? I pay taxes here so I must deserve it.

In other news

[Jacques Chester]

The government announced that CSIRO's funding allocation for next year will be reduced by a one-off amount of $200 million.

The savings will be used to fund a series of very large plaques in school gyms where, by pure coincidence, most polling booths are set up during federal elections.

Re:In other news

[wall0159]

Interestingly, one of the election platforms of the current Australian government was that they would increase governmental transparency and stop the practise of pork-barrelling (whereby taxpayer-funded projects were concentrated in marginal electorates - a charge they levied at the previous government).

I'm not saying they've succeeded in stopping this practise (I don't know, although I have heard good things about increases in transparency), but it was nice at least to hear them to say that they would!

Thanks! Works in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2708730.htm

If you're lucky, this might work in your region.

Many thanks. There seems to be a local server for ABC content. Halfway through watching it now and it's quite informative

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[mabinogi]

I think Australians would be perfectly happy that an Australian government research organisation funded by their taxes was also making additional income licensing their technologies to overseas and multi-national companies.

I know I am.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Cryacin]

Hi - we've developed and tested a new technology with your tax money, here it is, and here is how to use it. Please pay more money for the privilige of using what was yours already. Fixed that for you.

So everyone who's using WiFi is paying Australia taxes?

The public yes ... of Australia

[N Monkey]

CSIRO exists because it's publicly funded. It's publicly funded because it's supposed to benefit the public and create research results usable by everybody.

It's publicly funded, yes, but by the people of Australia,, not of the people of other nations. In that sense CSIRO are absolutely entitled to obtain license fees from international companies. I'd also argue that they are entitled to collect fees from Australian companies since that should then allow them to decrease their funding from Australian tax payers.

Re:The public yes ... of Australia

[Myopic]

By that reasoning, would you say that never should the results of publicly funded research be freely released?

Re:The public yes ... of Australia

[Ray]

Hell, we've got publicly funded banks and stock brokers here in the US and they don't think twice about charging ME for asking them to do something for me. CSIRO is far more legit than that.

Re:The public yes ... of Australia

[SleazyRidr]

Nope, never ever, no in your wildest dreams should these results be released. I mean, we've come across one situation where the greater good is served by licensing technology, so clearly, every situation you could ever possibly imagine has the same outcome.

Seriously though, this is clearly a situation where a lot of companies are using this research to turn a profit. At the very least all the foreign companies should be paying the Australian government for the privilege.

Re:Desire to license

[Anonymous Coward]

IP laws suck.

Re:Patent trolls

[melatonin]

More at issue is not the fact that they have the patent, but that they're trying to suck money out of everyone by participating in the IEEE and not signing a Letter of Assurance. A Letter of Assurance doesn't mean that you won't make money or won't sue, just that you'll charge reasonable royalties (IEEE's all about co-operation). Their requested royalty rates are several dollars per sale, which is stupid when you're talking about a technology that should be used in the cheapest devices. They signed a letter of assurance for 802.11a but kept silent on g and n. Then they started suing when g was adopted.

Re Pencillin and patents....

[N Monkey]

Interesting viewpoint. How much does Oz contribute to DARPA for the use of internet?
Or to England for Penicillin?

According to the wonderful BBC documentary, "Breaking the Mould",, Florey, the Australian heading the team, was completely against patenting the technology needed to produce it in sufficient quantities, even though one of his colleagues insisted he should.

Because it was needed during the war, it was shown to a US pharmaceutical(?) company who did patent the process, which meant that the original inventors would have to pay for their own invention.

Re:Re Pencillin and patents....

[__aayurq3262]

Because it was needed during the war, it was shown to a US pharmaceutical(?) company who did patent the process, which meant that the original inventors would have to pay for their own invention.

What should have happened: You can't patent something you didn't invent. The patent issued to the "US pharmaceutical(?) company" should have been declared invalid under 35 USC 102(f) because the "inventor" named in the U.S. patent application "did not himself invent the subject matter sought to be patented". (himself/herself: the U.S. laws are not written with politically correct wording.)

What might have happened: The US pharmaceutical(?) company developed a new method of bulk production and patented that. The original inventors felt that anyone who wanted to make penicillin should be free to do so, and the US pharmaceutical(?) company took them at their word, but didn't want others to use their new bulk production method. The inventors were free to use the original production method the they had "shown to a US pharmaceutical(?) company," but not the new bulk production method.

It's just like Tivoization of Open Source Software. If you want to prevent this sort of thing, you need to protect the original (software via copyright or penicillin via patent) then use a GPL v3 or equivalent license that prevents the Tivoization. Once the original is released to the public domain, people can do anything they want with it, even things the original inventor/author doesn't like.

Re:Re Pencillin and patents....

[N Monkey]

Because it was needed during the war, it was shown to a US pharmaceutical(?) company who did patent the process, which meant that the original inventors would have to pay for their own invention.

What should have happened: You can't patent something you didn't invent. The patent issued to the "US pharmaceutical(?) company" should have been declared invalid under 35 USC 102(f) because the "inventor" named in the U.S. patent application "did not himself invent the subject matter sought to be patented". (himself/herself: the U.S. laws are not written with politically correct wording.)

AFAIU, although the USPTO has a "first to invent" policy (though just how you establish that - especially if you have otherwise kept it secret - is another problem entirely), other countries have a "first to patent" policy.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[wisty]

CSIRO is only about 50% publicly funded. The rest comes from patents, product sales, and other commercial work. I personally think it should be 100% publicly funded (so it could give its good work to the public for free), but that's another argument.

Re:Patent trolls

[internettoughguy]

I take it you are apposed to foreign aid?

Re:Patent trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly. tonnes of other companies were trying to do wifi and failed.
csiro got it right. and for it they should get props.
here's a video for anyone wanting a bit of background on it:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2708730.htm

Ahh, I see

[Anonymous Coward]

No b...

Sorry, but I call BS

[EmagGeek]

If the taxpayer funds the research, the taxpayer owns the results. Nobody should be able to patent something that came about because of taxpayer-funded research.

Furthermore, patented technology shouldn't be allowed to make it into "standards." "Standards" should be open and unencumbered. It's fundamentally anti-competitive to standardize on encumbered technology.

Re:Sorry, but I call BS

[Viridae]

Furthermore, patented technology shouldn't be allowed to make it into "standards." "Standards" should be open and unencumbered. It's fundamentally anti-competitive to standardize on encumbered technology.

Why not? Why have your standard use a poor alternative.

Re:Patent trolls

[draco664]

I take it you are not apposed to foreigners jumping border to get health care, education and welfare.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Jurily]

Could you tell me who manufactured that computer of yours?

As an Australian scince student...

[ReneeJade]

I'm not for letting patents mess around with science and technology, but they do have their place. A lot of members of Internet communities seem to damn patents and copyrighting because it is so harmful to software engineering. And yes, I DO think that copyrighting and closed-source development have no place in software engineering, because keeping that kind of work hushed up does not benefit the science. But as an Australian studying both physics and software engineering I feel that there is a big difference between propriety software that has everyone on the Internet outraged and the licensing of technology. I feel that the CSIRO are an organisation that Australia can be proud of and some of their research will benefit human kind long after any patents have expired. If I end up working for the CSIRO I would want my work to be licensed. Not for the money or because it would be my "right", but because it would help with the continuation of excellent scientific research in Australia and Earth as a whole. If, however, I end up working as a programmer, I would rather give my code away and go hungry than have it all hushed up for the sake of a money hungry corporation, because transparency in software is beneficial to the science. That is not to say that software shouldn't be licensable or sellable, just that it should be visible - as the CSIRO's technologies often are. So before you all start squabbling over who should pay an extra five bucks for a wiFi card, think about what you're buying for the future. Outrage over copyrighting that stunts progress is fair, outrage over investing a few dollars into the advancement of technology is petty.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Canberra Bob]

Could you tell me who manufactured that computer of yours?

If the manufacturer gave it away for free there would be a point, otherwise that company can pay for the technology they are happy to charge us for.

OK, then, please pay the U.S. for ...

[davide marney]

THE INTERNET.

Re:OK, then, please pay the U.S. for ...

[Nqdiddles]

You almost seem to be suggesting that Australia has beaten you at your own game.
I think the situation is worth judging on it's own merit - a research company that was able to obtain a patent (that is obviously still solid enough that large companies are paying) is promoting licensing of the technology in order to fund more scientific research.
Or we could just look at it as the kid next door having the toy we want - and dammit if he didn't write his name on it so we can't just run off with it. The part that amuses me is that the kid used your own damn pen to write his name.
I'd agree that there's problems with the patent system - but I won't hold a scientific research organisation to blame for using that system to support themselves.

Re:OK, then, please pay the U.S. for ...

[smoker2]

Maybe you should read up about that. There were somewhat equivalent systems running in other countries at the same time as ARPAs. A lot of the research was not done by americans, and the WWW concept was done by an Englishman. When did the net take off ? Before or after the web ?

Re:OK, then, please pay the U.S. for ...

[Ecuador]

Not a good example, as the internet elders have declared the Internet free for everyone all over the world. Plus, even if it was invented in the US, it is now in the hands of the British (on top of the Big Ben for good reception as you probably know).

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Osinoche]

Yes. Quite serious.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Hognoxious]

It's their invention, so their decision what to do with it. However it's often better for an R&D specialist to keep doing R&D and let manufaturing specialists license and make the stuff.

Prior Art?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why isn't packet radio prior art for this? People were sharing bits over radio long before wifi.

Re:Prior Art?

[jc66]

...because the patent was not on "sharing bits over radio", it was on some extremely clever and complex technologies that were developed, intially for radio telescopes, and then extended to the difficult problem of fast communications inside of an echoey and interference filled environment.

Just because this is now done inside a chip that costs a few euros doesn't make it simpler, and just because 99.999% of the people using it (99.9999% on slashdot) have no idea what is going on in their little box, it doesn't mean it isn't worth other companies paying for the patents.

Or Ug patented the wheel...

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't.

And one reason is that software patents are not accepted.

This is a hardware patent, requires an FFT chip which CSIRO invented.

Re:Or Ug patented the wheel...

[melatonin]

So because the software is burned to a chip that makes it acceptable?

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Zencyde]

Or we can throw away this whole "competition" thing and start working more towards a "cooperative" situation. Oh wait, am I expecting people to agree and work together? Sorry about that. Must have lost my head.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Nqdiddles]

I couldn't agree more. My taxes helped pay for the research, and continue to help fund the work of the CSIRO in a multitude of areas. The fact that they can supplement their Government budget by licensing the technology they develop is a great boon to science - especially when budget cuts can wreak such havok on worthwhile research endeavours. As an Australian, I'm not as concerned about "paying twice" for the technology when I know it's not going to patent trolls - it's going to a research organisation doing science for purposes other than profit. For the rest of the world, you're only paying for it once. Stop complaining.

Re:Desire to license

[Anonymous Coward]

That certainly helps explain their router prices!

I wonder how much it adds to them? If we guess that the defendants are, between them, responsible for the production of 200m wireless devices (sound vaguely reasonable?), the settlement cost should add about $1 per device. The licensing fee is probably a bit less than that, since it doesn't include court costs.

Obvious?

[Gudeldar]

The tech companies seem to believe that CSIRO's patent is obvious and thus shouldn't have been granted. Is there any merit to this claim? Everyone seems to be either jumping to CSIRO (all the people with mod points seem to be on their side) or the tech companies defense without even thinking about the actual patent they are trying to enforce.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't packet radio (in the HAM world at least) like 30 years old? just because it was patented in the 90s, and hasn't ever been challenged doesn't mean that it is automatically a valid patent.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[SleazyRidr]

I thought that WiFi technology was in use outside Australia. I had no idea we were so far ahead of the pack.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Anonymous Coward]

So by your own personal definition of 'patent troll', if you invented something new, and got a patent on it, that makes you personally a patent troll?

Well thanks for taking our term for people that abuse the patent system, and applying it to everyone on the planet thus making it useless.

I think the rest of us will stick to using it as a definition for something useful instead.

Please help me to understand...

[nathana]

So, I see all of the posts coming to the defense of CSIRO, and I get them. I truly do.

However, there is still one thing I do not get: Why is CSIRO going (and why have they been allowed to go) after the companies selling the final piece of complete, end-user hardware in a shrink-wrap box, rather than the chipset manufacturers themselves? Isn't it Broadcom, Atheros, Intel, Ralink, Realtek, etc., who failed to license the technology? It seems to me that the company who takes the chipset and slaps their name on the front of a plastic box that contains it has become an unwitting victim in all of this. Most of these companies don't even really have their own designs. The original Broadcom reference design was tweaked by Gemtek and then rebranded by Linksys, Buffalo, and many, many others, for example...most of these companies buy their stuff from an ODM and barely do any of their own actual engineering and are just sales and marketing warehouses.

So why are all the actual chipset manufacturers getting off scott-free?

-- Nathan

Re:Please help me to understand...

[Viridae]

They went after buffalo technology originally (test case), the rest sued to have the patent rendered invalid. CSIRO counter-sued. The chipset manufacturers will toes the line at some point if they haven't already.

idea

[Chewbacon]

Let's make our own wireless standard, give it away to CSIRO and then charge them for it some years later. Yeah, screw those guys!

Re:Desire to license

[HuguesT]

From memory CISCO got an early license because they bought the startup from CSIRO that set put to exploit that patent and related others. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[Anonymous Coward]

"... LY! It's "seriousLY!"

And my answer is "Nawww, it's for fun."

Re:Are you fucking serious.

[luke_francis2000]

Yes it is publicly funded, but the idea of the public funding is to allow people to do research to see where it goes. Commercial companies tend to be very focused on what the problem is, and how to solve it, where as research for research sake, you can find solutions or improvements without intending to. Not everything the CSIRO, (or it's equivalent bodies in other countries) research will result in a solution. Not all of the solutions will be useable or marketable. But the ones that do produce money to do more research, due to the extra money available to buy equipment, and pay money to research staff. Think about all the things that have been found either accidently or with no practical solution in mind, including penicillin, the electron, x-rays, etc. Without applied research where would we be?

Bull

[Anonymous Coward]

The precursor to Wi-Fi was invented in 1991 by NCR Corporation/AT&T (later Lucent Technologies & Agere Systems) in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands. It was initially intended for cashier systems; the first wireless products were brought on the market under the name WaveLAN with speeds of 1 Mbit/s to 2 Mbit/s. Vic Hayes, who held the chair of IEEE 802.11 for 10 years and has been named the "father of Wi-Fi," was involved in designing standards such as IEEE 802.11b, and 802.11a.

Those guy's just bought the patent they didn't really do anything.

Next thing they will be saying they own parts of linux.

I guess Australia owns Citizen's Band as well. Because Wifi is essential based on radio waves. Therefore Cellphones are well within their domain.
 

How about Gauss in 1805

[celtic_hackr]

Your dating is a bit off. Try Charles Frederic Gauss in 1805 for the first documented description of FFTs, just mostly forgotten for 160 years. It didn't become popular widely until 1965. After which it became used all over the place in hardware and software. I studied FFT application in college engineering and programming classes. FFTs have been common knowledge in engineering for 20 years or more. Making it into a hardware chip might have been new, but certainly not novel.

Everyone wanted to put FFTs into chips, since they began making chips and certainly DSPs. I'm fairly sure many video cards implement FFTs and probably 90% of all DSPs. Not sure when CSIRO did this, but it must be longer than any US patent (Thompson implemented a VLSI FFT chip in 1979) would be valid for. The University of Goettingen has Gauss' works on-line you could go there to verify it. But then you'd probably have to learn German and maybe Latin (although, IIRC they translated the Latin stuff). There were others doing FFT algorithm in the span from 1805 to the 1965 popularization you speak of, although you're off by about five years there, too..

I haven't read CSIRO patent so don't know if it was novel or not, but you're wrong about the FFT part in many ways.

Re:How about Gauss in 1805

[SlashWombat]

Okay, in reply. Yes, the FFT has been described several times over the last few centuries, but it never really achieved any recognition until Cooley & Tukey described it. (One of these authors actually seemed surprised at the recognition he gained from the FFT ...)As for hardware implementations of the FFT. The CSIRO FFT chip predates the WiFi by a significant amount of time. Probably not the first implementation in hardware, but undoubtedly one of the first ten. The FFT requires significant amounts of logic to implement, and certainly early FPGA's were did not have sufficient resources to implement it. Having grown up with much of this technology evolving as I worked with it, I don't have the impression that chips are (or were) as fast as some people here seem to think. You must remember that the state of the art in 1975 was the 8080 cpu ... roughly 10,000 gates. A decent FFT requires much more than that (and memory chips as well!) Whilst DSP's of the 80's (any computer chip actually) could do semi decent jobs in the FFT arena, they certainly couldn't do several megabytes a second, even for a 256 bin FFT. (Also, back in the late 80's / early 90's, DSP's cost an arm and a leg -- making them somewhat prohibitive for many applications!)

Yes, the technique is OFDM ... principally so that the symbol timing can be made relatively long, thus simplifying/improving the data recovery in the presence of echo's. (Simply integrating the data over time makes this an easy process to implement.) Digital communications really didn't begin to evolve until several technologies had evolved, not just FFT's, but also analog to digital converters that could operate successfully at multi MHz clock rates. In 1980, I purchased several 6 bit flash converters that would work at up to 30 MHz (results were pretty horrible by todays standards ...) --- these cost me $100 each. Now you can easily get a 100 MHz 14 bit converter for a few dollars, and the results are spectacular. (OFDM requires at least two Analogue to digital converters on the Receive side ... plus high speed sine/cos generators to provide the mixers before the ADC's {to generate the real and imaginary components feeding the FFT ...}

So, what seems easy now (perhaps even obvious) was certainly ground breaking stuff only 20 or so years ago!

Re:How about Gauss in 1805

[celtic_hackr]

So what you're saying is that because when we started making computer hardware it was slow, and as we learned how to make it smaller and smaller it made it possible to make cheap FFT hardware, and because of this the first people who made it, once the technology was advanced enough to make it cheaply, should get a patent for it?
I disagree.
As, I think patents should not be awarded for things we know "how" to do, but don't yet have the technology to "make" them cheaply (unless someone comes up with a new and novel way of making it). Patents should be for things that no one has foreseen, like typewriters, and integrated circuits, and positronic brains.

Wi-Fi in DOS days not novel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... considering they invented this back in 93/94.

Re:Patent trolls

[ztransform]

Can someone please justify why we should consider the CSIRO to be a patent troll?

Because they are Australian, and all Australian government organisations exist to hurt and legally injure real people.

Re:Desire to license

[BikeHelmet]

It's possible that the licensing fee is/was higher, and they're just taking what they can get. Perhaps the 200 million is for to-date violations, and now those companies will also be licensing at a higher cost?

Because of the confidential terms, we won't be able to confirm either scenario.

Re:Patent trolls

[freepay]

They're NOT patent trolls at all. $200 million isn't much, and CSIRO can make good use of it.

But there is a problem when major industry standards like 802.11 a,g and n can somehow end up patented, after years of work and negotiation by many different companies and individuals, who now have to pay to use their own collective, public work. Whether the problem in this case is carelessness by the companies, or corruption of the U.S. patent system, or both, I don't know.

In any case we do have a problem, and it could bite much worse in the future.