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

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

[technobok]

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

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: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: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.

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?