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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.'"
Idiocy. CSIRO is nothing like a patent troll. CSIRO developed the technology...
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?
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.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
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.
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.
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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.
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?
My pics.
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.
Advanced users are users too!
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.
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.