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CSIRO Reinvests Patent Earnings
ozmanjusri writes with an update to a story we discussed a few days ago about a $200 million patent victory by CSIRO, Australia's governmental science research body. The organization has now turned around and reinvested $150 million of the proceeds into the science and industry endowment fund, which has already established three grants: "$12 million for two wireless research projects and $7.5 million for up to 120 fellowships and scholarships." CSIRO boss Megan Clark said, "It's very important that when you have a success like this, you reinvest it back into the wellspring. It's really about supporting areas that might need a helping hand in some of the frontier areas and research that actually tackles the national challenges."
When a patent victory comes, it goes straight out as executive pay bonus.
New Economic Perspectives
If by government you mean "research organisation" and by "tax" you mean "earn money on" and "industry" you mean "use of their inventions", then yes, absolutely.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
How does a $200m settlement, for several years of use of the technology, spread over an industry which earns billions per year, stifle progress? The wireless industry's probably been hit harder by the increase in the price of ketchup for the staff canteen.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Maybe the companies shouldn't have tried to weasel out of paying royalties then.
What else were they supposed to do with the money? It's not like they have shareholders to support.
Known as "The Red Blackout", "The Redout" or simply "Ketchup monday".
This is just ridiculous - you clearly have no idea about this particular case.
The research for which this patent was granted was THE thing that made modern wireless networking possible. It took radio data transfer from kilobits per second (where it had languished for some time) to a hundred megabits per second. At a time when you were using a 14k modem if you were lucky.
And secondly, while software patents in the USA may be commonly used to stifle innovation, this technology was the thing that enabled the wifi industry to get started and IN NO WAY stifled anything. They haven't limited what it is used for. Or who uses it. Multiple standards have emerged based on it, all in the full foreknowledge that this was the basis technology. This is no submarine patent - the devices and the standards were based on this - and $200M total is pocket change spread among the multibillion giants of the world technology industry.
Third, it is a patent granted for a short time for technology that will be in use for an extremely long time to come.
This is exactly the kind of technological progress that the patent system was designed to encourage - this is the patent system WORKING the way it was intended.
It is amazing that you can be so grossly wrong in so many ways in such a short comment. I have no idea how that got modded 'insightful'.
It's not just "THE thing that made modern wireless networking possible", it is modern wireless networking. The patent abstract:
Shit like Ask Geeves was valued at two billion dollars and people are quibbling that fourteen multi-billion-dollar companies have to spend $200m between them? Seriously?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
The greed! First they get lots of money, then they go and put it to good so as to deprive me of being able to indignantly call them out for their immoral ways. The government can never do anything right!
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a state-funded organisation
An organization funded by the government of Australia doesn't take any tax dollars from US citizens or any tax euros from EU-member citizens. So CSIRO is "a state-funded organization" to only 0.31 percent of the world population.
Getting royalties on a patent does not make you a patent troll. Buying up patents you didn't invent just to make money off them IS. (There is NO "research, patent, troll" cycle, only a "buy/write trivial patent, wait, troll" one.)
The CSIRO spent money developing the technology in the patents. They're reinvesting the royalties (which are a fucking PITTANCE) back into new research. That's the very opposite of being a patent troll.
Wow, I've worked with some ex-CSIRO people. You're just screwing yourself there I'm afraid.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
You're an idiot.
CSIRO's patent which netted it 200 million is not a software patent. It's a hardware patent. Read the patent itself (from way back in 1993) if you don't believe me. The word "software" doesn't even appear in it.
This is exactly the way the patent system is supposed to work. It's supposed to encourage innovation and protect investment. What CSIRO is doing is improving the world. Can you imagine the world today if they hadn't done the research and developed the WIFI technology that everyone takes for granted?
It on the public record that they licensed the technology and expected to receive payments. As the court cases showed, the big tech companies just tried to weasel their way out of actually coughing up the cash after taking the technology and incorporating it into their products.
How can you be mad that this cash is going into cutting edge research projects rather than hookers and coke for some executive's next mediterranean cruise?
This is completely misleading.
The Rault paper was published in 1989, not in the 60's. Less than 4 years before the CSIRO patent was filed. Moreover Rault's techniques, while similar to those being developed at the SAME TIME at CSIRO, were not those that led on to wifi as we know it.
Yes - multiple groups were working in the area at that time; but the CSIRO researchers got there first, built it, made it work, published it, patented it, and it is on THAT RESEARCH that wifi is based.
The Rault paper was put forward as prior art, examined and rejected. I don't know how to put it more simply.
All I can say is good for them. They developed a core piece of technology and have re-invested for the future. As another poster already mentioned, this is the way the patent system should work. Now, if only the damn patent trolls would wake up, stop their frivolous lawsuits and coercion tactics and actually invent something instead of profiteering off of other companies investments by buying up patents, we would be getting somewhere. Unfortunately, the current patent environment in the US won't let this happen.
Yes, the Rault paper (which includes all the techniques in the patent, just not one particular application) was published in 1989, years before the CSIRO patent was filed (it doesn't matter how many years, as long as it's greater than one year). COFDM itself was invented in the 1960s.
You've put it too simply. The Rault paper was rejected as prior art because it didn't mention that the same techniques would work indoors. That's an indication that the system is broken, not a testament to the validity of the patent.
You seem to imply CSIRO didn't work for their money, despite inventing, and testing, the technology that a very, very large number of people use daily. That qualifies as then not being a troll, and it qualifies the companies as trying to weasel out of something so small, the payment for the use of their patented technology, it's absurd.
Also, do you think that any company would put that much of the 200 million dollars into research on this one technology? Any company would take that money and run, and usually only come up with an incremental upgrade to what we have now, if anything at all.
I wonder why you think that is inherently better?
Given that we're looking at a case where a fresh approach taken by an independent research organisation arrived at an impressive solution that the people "actually designing and making" the devices weren't even beginning to think about I think it's fairly obvious that there is value in external research.
I remember the bad old days of wireless networking where you could eke out a bit more speed by choosing equipment from a single manufacturer that used their own particular proprietary, patented technology to get a speed boost. Personally I'd prefer an external organisation willing to licence that technology to everyone.
Indeed the reason's for CSIRO's existence is to benefit Australians. As an institution funded by Australians that is reasonable. What they are doing is in the interest of Australians.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
This is exactly the way the patent system is supposed to work. It's supposed to encourage innovation and protect investment. What CSIRO is doing is improving the world. Can you imagine the world today if they hadn't done the research and developed the WIFI technology that everyone takes for granted?
Yeah, I can imagine it --- somebody else would have done the research and the world would be basically just the same. If this is an example of how patents are a good thing, I'm not convinced.
There would have been just as much pressure / motivation for wifi without patents: the first laptop to have wifi would have been an enormous hit, and all the competitors would have had to follow.
(FWIW, I'm an Australian scientist and taxpayer. I have plenty of respect for the CSIRO, and I'm happy to see them land 200 million. But I'd much rather fund them through taxes than have a massive patent system.)