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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.'"
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.
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
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
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.
Cisco aren't on the list because they already have a licence for the tech for which they pay royalties.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
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.
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.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Er, according to this article:
What "savaging" are you talking about?
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
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?
If you have an allergy to your wifi, you shouldn't have married her.
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.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
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.