CSIRO Sues US Carriers Over Wi-Fi Patent

An anonymous reader notes that CSIRO has sued Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile in — wait for it — East Texas District Court. "Australia's peak science body stands to reap more than $1 billion from its lucrative Wi-Fi patent after already netting about $250 million from the world's biggest technology companies, an intellectual property lawyer says. The CSIRO has spent years battling 14 technology giants including Dell, HP, Microsoft, Intel, Nintendo, and Toshiba for royalties and made a major breakthrough in April last year when the companies opted to avoid a jury hearing and settle for an estimated $250 million. Now, the organization is bringing the fight to the top three US mobile carriers in a new suit targeting Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile. It argues they have been selling devices that infringe its patents."

Comments

CSIRO are still good guys

[ignavus]

The CSIRO is an independent government-owned technology research body - a bit like (say) NASA is in the US.

The money isn't lining the pockets of some uber-squillionaire with a Lear jet, it will be funding a very worthwhile agency that can churn out even better research.

Yeah, I would like it to be free too, but at least it is going to one of the more worthy technological causes.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Itninja]

...independent government-owned..

Oh, you're adorable.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[dwywit]

And they need the money - they recently lost edu status with Microsoft, so they'll have to pony up more $$$ for software.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[jd]

Perhaps they should have said "possibly marginally less corrupt quango". (Let's face it, you can't vote out a corporate board of directors but you can vote out a quango's paymaster.)

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, you don't think NASA is independant? :)

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Mark19960]

Then why are they in East Texas District Court of all places?
If you don't want to be labeled a troll, don't act like one.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

True. However, I wonder whether the Australian taxpayers like the idea of paying an incrementally higher cost on all the wireless devices that depend upon the technology invented by CSIRO? Buy a cell phone? Pay more. Buy a wireless access point? Pay more. And so on. We know that if AT&T, Verizon, Dell, or whatever Australian equivalent lose the case and pay licensing fees they'll just pass the costs on to consumers. So, for their multi-million (billion?) investment in CSIRO, the Australian taxpayer gets to: A) pay more for products, B) fund a whole lot of lawyers for years and years.

Win!

As far as I'm concerned the only reason a government institution should be able to patent something is so that it can be royalty-free and someone else can't patent it. Making money off it seems ultimately self-defeating.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[king neckbeard]

One could argue that this is worse. I expect multinational conglomerates to sue or demand royalties if given the chance, but a research body should arguably be above this, and their research should be freely available to all. This attitude is reflected in the way works for the US government are put into the public domain, and universities both public and private often release software under permissive license (BSD stands for 'Berkeley Software Distribution' and the MIT license comes from MIT).

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because an act is normally taken by a patent troll, doesn't mean that acting in that way makes you a patent troll. If you are undertaking legal action, the smart thing to do, regardless of the merits of the case, is to do whatever you can to maximise the likelihood of success.

For patent infringement cases in the US, that means filing in the East Texas District Court.

If you're looking to recoup a few billion dollars, and taking a particular action gives you an extra 10% (for example) chance of winning, wouldn't you do it?

Or, to put it another way, boiling it down to the simple logic of the statements: let A be the statement "You are a patent troll." Let B be the statement, "Your case will be filed in East Texas District Court." A implies B. B does not necessarily imply A.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[SpazmodeusG]

Because even if you're right you'd be a fool not to sue in the easiest possible court.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Marsell]

It's called "forum shopping", and all litigants with a clue take advantage of it.

Whether your case is morally right or wrong, attempting to stack the case in your own favour is a rational action; nobody attempts to lose a lawsuit.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

CSIRO is responsible for research and development,

the money from royalties is funneled back into research and development.

CSIRO invests heavily in developing alternative fuel sources including Biodiesel and environmental protection weed erratication in australia, advices government of sustainable business practices and improve farming practices.

most importantly the more money they take from greedy International companies
the less they drain from Australian Taxpayers

Increasing the price of WIFI instruments may add a bill to 30 million Australians, but this is far outwieghed by 5 billion people world wide which will now pay extra on WIFI devices and that money will make its way into Australia

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

Normally I'm cynical about government, but the CSIRO do good work.

They're a bunch of scientists who get left alone by the government because the Australian Government doesn't understand them well enough to interfere with them. Previously underfunded, this 'lazy billion' might actually cause the government to sit up and try and to pay attention.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Mark19960]

Not alleging they are a patent troll.
Humans judge one another by actions.

If you are seen harassing kids smaller than you then your called a bully.
But, if nobody ever saw the kids you were having this altercation with do it first then you will be labeled a bully.

So, here we are... if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then it must be a duck.
Patent trolls love to litigate, so these guys appear to like to litigate.... and they love the East Texas District Court...

I have no idea who did what to who, but it does not help your image when all everyone sees is you litigating in the patent troll arena.
Hence my statement.. 'if you don't want to be labeled a patent troll, don't act like one.'

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Tanman]

Because Texas judges have the most patent experience and won't have the wool pulled over their eyes so easily by slick corporate lawyers?

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[SpazmodeusG]

NASAs technology isn't open to all why should CSIROs?
http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/working/patent.html

As an Australian i'm happy that the government has a research arm. I'm also happy to see we make an effort to get other coutries to pay their share for the products of this research.
 

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[hedwards]

You mean because they have the most experience not being tricked by slick corporate lawyers representing defendants. They regularly get tricked by slick attorneys into giving out dubious awards.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[dunng808]

I would prefer that universities make research results free, but the treand has been going in the opposit direction. Universities patent whatever they can in hopes of making some money off it.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[victorhooi]

heya,

Mate, as an Australian, I have to say the CSIRO is one of the more respected bodies here. They're government funded (meaning we taxpayers fund them), but they are completely independent and they churn out some damn good research - sure, a lot of it's probably agriculture-oriented, but not all, as this shows.

To accuse them of being a patent troll is patently (pun intended :p) ridiculous.

Firstly, they're not a patent-house - they're a research institute, that does government-funded research. It'd be like accusing NASA, or DARPA, or say the NIH of being a patent troll. Here's a story of the NIH suing a pharmaceutical giant over missing royalties for an AIDS drug:

http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v6/n12/full/nm1200_1302a.html

I don't exactly see Slashdotters up in arms accusing the NIH of being a patent troll. Is this some kind of weird US-centric bias?

Secondly, they happened to pick a place that favours people litigating on patents - what's the big deal? You'd expect them to pick a place that disfavoured patent holders? Please, why would they intentionally sabotage their case like that, it makes absolutely no sense at all - you can take your pick of any of the 50 US states, and you happen to pick one that doesn't like patent holders? Don't be silly. They obviously have lawyers with half a brain, and they happened to pick the right state. I think

Cheers,
Victor

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[victorhooi]

heya,

Oh please....

As somebody insightfully pointed out above, the money CSIRO makes from these royalties will be used to fund more research - recouping the government's investment in R&D, so to speak. We may pay more for Wifi devices, if the manufacturers try to pass it on (although I suspect the highly-competitive nature of the market may mitigate that somewhat), but ultimately they'll be a net inflow back to the Australian people.

From your statement, I'm going to assume you're US - see here, your NIH sues a pharmaceutical giant over missing drug royalties:

http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v6/n12/full/nm1200_1302a.html

And NASA's been embroiled on the receiving side with patent litigation with Boeing.

Thing is, at the end of the day, this is the real world, and people like to protect the R&D they make. And as an Australian citizen, who's taxes fund this research, I would like to see the CSIRO being smart, as opposed to being dumb, and getting walked over by big manufacturers.

Cheers,
Victor

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[hedwards]

They're not patent trolls, they've been fighting to be compensated for nearly a decade and a half. Wireless wasn't really anywhere near as big back then as it is now. You act like they waited until it exploded before going gotcha, pay me my money.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[king neckbeard]

I would agree that NASA should release their patents as well, and the same would go for any other US government agencies and agencies of other governments. It's a waste of taxpayer's money all around (unless you are a lawyer, perhaps). If you want others to put in a share for research, do it collectively with an organization like CERN, or have your research be privately funded.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Gonoff]

Most of the world sees their government and its subsidiaries as more answerable than a corporate or multinational.

You can vote out a government, but a corporate monopolist is here to stay - until they get bought out by another one.

I have heard of this organisation before. If it is a choice between corporate pirates or a Quango I will usually try and avoid the corporates. In the UK, we are just about to close a load of quangos that have outstayed their welcome. I imagine that there are many here on /. who would love to close down Microsoft. Too bad. They are not going anytime soon and they are just one of many.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[victorhooi]

heya,

Err, yes it does, you silly twit.

And it's not just an "idea", it's an investment that they invested a bucketload of money in perfecting, probably more money than you and I have seen in our lives, and took them several years.

It's only naturally that after say, publishing a paper on it, they don't want to see other people come and read the paper, take those years of research, and make money off stupid consumers like you and I, without the original brains behind the invention getting a cent.

And they're a research institute. They're interested in creating good quality research, not in offshoring US jobs to China. It seems a bit ridiculous that you expect them to be a manufacturing house as well, in order to "keep" their inventment/research. That seems completely unfair.

The NIH does cancer research, AIDS research etc. You don't see Americans cry bloody murder when the NIH then goes to sue pharmaceutical giants that refuse to pay royalties do you? (I've already pasted the link to that above - but here it is again http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v6/n12/full/nm1200_1302a.html).

Cheers,
Victor

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[TooMuchToDo]

The carriers are doing something with this technology and simply inventing it does not entitle CSIRO to an automatic right to be paid money, or worse to deny its use for the benefit of everyone.

Perhaps you're not familiar with how patents work. That's exactly what they're there for.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why are they in East Texas District Court of all places?

There's a coupla really nice strip joints close by..

Your honor, I call for a three hour recess

Why?

Uh, discovery..yeah, that's it...

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Tanman]

The point is this: Supposing you have a legitimate patent infringement case, where are you going to take your case?

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, you don't think NASA is independant? :)

In which pendant? Oh. Look obviously NASA is under direct control of the administration, otherwise why would that Jim Hansen guy have spread GW Bush's lies about global warming? Sheesh.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[grim-one]

Yes, because those researchers do not need to feed or clothe their families. They can just invent more money and goods! /cynicism

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Capsaicin]

[I]f it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then it must be a duck. Patent trolls love to litigate, so these guys appear to like to litigate...

Ducks breathe. You breathe, therefore you are a duck. Nicely reasoned dude!

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[king neckbeard]

I don't exactly see Slashdotters up in arms accusing the NIH of being a patent troll. Is this some kind of weird US-centric bias?

I think it's more likely to be because slashdot's audience is more concerned with software than medicine or patents in general.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[king neckbeard]

Yes, if only government funded research organizations had some way of getting money from the government.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

...independent government-owned..

Oh, you're adorable.

Yes, independent and government owned, you find that difficult to grok? Is the simplistic ideology you use to filter reality getting in your way of your understanding? Time to drop it and develop a less B&W view of the role of government. It will only make you wiser.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

No question, they do churn out excellent research, and CSIRO are not a patent troll.

But are you content with paying more for all the wireless devices you buy as CSIRO impose license fees on companies selling the products and the companies pass those increased costs onto the consumer, all thanks to what was originally taxpayer-funded research at CSIRO? I'd certainly have mixed feelings about the arrangement.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

I would think that like any government funded agency (as well as US) that makes profit off of taxes should pay said profit back to the actual people that helped fund it in the beginning. Spread that billion around to every single tax paying Australian citizen or be labelled a troll for sure.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that CSIRO does good research, I know that the royalties (hopefully) will be funneled back into R&D. I just find it odd that everyone in the world, including Australians, have to pay more for something thanks to excellent taxpayer-funded CSIRO research. This is progress? I suppose if the money goes to more research it isn't so bad, but "pay taxes" and then "pay more for the resulting products" still seems backwards. Do they at least grant a license exception for Australian companies? That would seem a little fairer and might actually encourage companies that deal with these products to set up shop there. Then you'd only be billing the people that didn't make an investment in CSIRO in the first place.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Itninja]

I suppose that's true. But a corporation is actually independent. Whereas a quango, like NASA, just does what they are told by their leash holders. That's not necessarily bad, but it sure ain't independence. Maybe a better comparison would be like a 'wholly-owned subsidiary'; they do what they want, but only within well defined boundaries.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

You really can't tell the difference between "walks like a duck and talks like a duck" and "respirates like a duck?"

Perhaps we should create "reasons like a duck," duck.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just aussies who will be paying more, it's everybody around the world. Thus the royalties collected here will go to CSIRO to help pay for their research which in this case, benefits everybody around the world.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Foobar of Borg]

You really can't tell the difference between "walks like a duck and talks like a duck" and "respirates like a duck?"

How about "weighs the same as a duck?"

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[harlows_monkeys]

EDT isn't even in the top five when it comes to plaintiff odds for winning. We've been over this before so I'm not going to repeat the reasons both plaintiffs and defendants like EDT.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[pete6677]

This is why it is futile to try to do anything innovative in the United States. Patent trolls will come popping out of the woodwork if you succeed. NOTHING meaningful can be done in the American tech industry without stepping on some overly broad patent. Might as well pack up shop and move to some nation where they don't give a shit about the US patent system.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[grim-one]

Ah, so you expect government funded research to subsidise multinational conglomerates and citizens of other nations then? I'm perfectly happy for my government funded research organisation to extract payment where and when it is due, such as from said multinational conglomerates who use their research. It both lessens my tax burden and increases the funds available to the research organisation. And yes, I'm an Australian taxpayer and CSIRO is my government funded research organisation.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[king neckbeard]

Yes, I do expect public research to subsidize the benefit of the entire world. Regarding he policy you are advocating, do you think that you get a net benefit from it, though? You get money from one patent, but lose money from says 10 other patents by other countries (Germany's Fraunhofer, for example, is similar to CSIRO owns a lot of patents as well) , plus the overhead from patent applications to various countries, and the legal fees induced anybody who fights it.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, many moderators don't understand the difference between "I don't agree with you" and "troll."

Unfortunately there is no mod for logically defective post. Maybe it should have been rated Overrated instead of Troll, but his entire point is based on affirming the consequent. (See also this illustration in reply.) It was probably modded Troll because the very post he was responding to had already pointed this fallacy out.

Good thing you didn't have mod points tonight, eh?

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Chuck Chunder]

I think you have to look at it in terms of end result.

The actual research here was began with astronomy and without an incentive for CSIRO to look at (and develop) potential cross-domain applications of what they are working on things such as this may not end up being developed at all (or for a while).

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[daveime]

If they've been fighting to be compensated for "nearly a decade and a half", then why are they only filing NOW ?

Could it be that perhaps they wanted every manufacturer to adopt / steal their IP, so they'd have more targets to sue ?

Come clean ffs ... if they'd licenced their IP in 1997, the manufacturers might have thought "oh shit, this is going to cost a fortune in licences, maybe we should do our own R&D and make a better alternative, it'll cost us less in the long run".

What they did is equivalent to a drug dealer handing out free samples, then once he's got 6 billion people addicted, saying "now it's gonna cost you big money".

And really ... we're talking about a wifi spec ... it's hardly original, just some applying a "new and improved" method to an already existing technology. It's not big pharma that costs anywhere between 200 and 400 million in trials and approvals. All they did was add a few bits of circuitry and boosted the speed of existing tech. R&D costs, hmm ... coupla hundred thousand max ?

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[dbIII]

So tell me then - why should the multinational conglomerates get a free ride this time paid for by the Australian taxpayer?

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[grim-one]

Do I get a net benefit? I hope so. CSIRO is aiming for 50% of its funding to come from commercialisation of their technologies, meaning government and taxpayers will only need to pay for 50% of their budget (currently it's much closer to 80%). As for other countries research, you only pay patent licensing on products you use, I should only pay Fraunhofer if I'm using their tech.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[atmurray]

The CSIRO is playing the same rules that apply to everyone. The reason why the big company's aren't happy is that the CSIRO has no need to do a patent "swap". Normally, the big companies would just threaten to sue each other due to patent infringement and then at the last minute agree to cross licensing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-licensing with a minimal (if any) amount of money trading hands. However, the CSIRO doesn't make end product. As such they have no need for cross licensing. They just want royalties for their IP. Big business goes after the smaller guys that don't have IP to cross license all the time, why is it that now the shoe is on the other foot that everyone is up in arms about it?

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

But what's a henweigh?

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[atmurray]

Oh and also, the CSIRO aren't Patent Trolls as they spun off a company (Radiata) to commercialise the patent. Radiata was then aquired by CISCO. "Patent troll is a pejorative term used for a person or company that enforces its patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered unduly aggressive or opportunistic, often with no intention to manufacture or market the patented invention." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[king neckbeard]

But you really don't know what kind of benefit you get. Also, you seem to be missing that you have to pay for everyone else's government funded research and their legal fees. Fraunhofer owns patents on mp3 and many other codecs. In this case, you are losing because you aren't German. In order for you to have a net benefit from government researchers holding patents, your country has to make more than citizens pay out on these things, and make up for the legal fees and the hurdles these patents cause.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[grim-one]

Sorry but when did I pay another country for their research or legal fees outside of the products that use it? I'm more than happy to pay for a portion of their costs if I buy a related piece of technology (MP3 in your example). What doesn't make sense is Germany alone paying for other countries to use their audio compression technology. Or in CSIRO's case Australia paying for the USA to benefit greatly from their wireless technology. Credit where it is due.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[master_twig]

Not all of their departments do good work however. I happen to have the misfortune of knowing just how well (ie: badly) their mining division works. They cost their clients millions of dollars by presenting the good guy persona that CSIRO has (and deserves) and then not delivering because they get a case of ADD and start working on the wrong thing.

I'm not going to go into details (yeah yeah trolling unless you substantiate claims) because of where I work, but not all CSIRO's were created equal if you take my meaning.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[king neckbeard]

I'm saying that I suspect that practically everyone ends up at a net disadvantage, and that we would all be statistically better off if none of our government funded research organizations bothered with patents. If the end result is that you as an individual are paying more money for getting the same products, then why would you support it?

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

I have some first hand knowledge of this...
virtually all of NASAs technology is available on free/non-exclusive licenses.

The exceptions tend to be when some other party has put their own resources into the research (example: Cooperative Research and Development Agreements: CRADA) or when a NASA employee/contractor developed it partly on their own time, but using govt resources. in which case the govt gets a license ("shop rights"), but can't transfer that onwards. R&D with universities often also includes some weird IP rights agreements because of Bayh-Dole, but those typically don't involve large royalties.

Or, when the development itself used IP licensed from someone else, in which case there's a sort of viral license thing. For instance, GPL code developed by NASA remains GPL, and isn't licensed under the usual free/non-exclusive or released to public domain.

(And, of course, a separate issue.. NASA does space, and lots of space-stuff is export controlled)

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[treff89]

If they've been fighting to be compensated for "nearly a decade and a half", then why are they only filing NOW ?

Have you been reading a different thread? As stated many times, and *even linked to in the original post*, the CSIRO has very recently had a similar case against several major manufacturers decided in their favour.

With this precedent now in place, and bolstered by extra capital, they are moving against other companies who have profited from their technology at no cost.

The money couldn't be going to a better cause. This is one of the examples of these patent laws being used for the good of the public and not for selfish corporate gain.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[shutdown -p now]

If they've been fighting to be compensated for "nearly a decade and a half", then why are they only filing NOW ?

They filed against other companies first. Now that those suits have been successful, they expand their reach. I would imagine that they don't have unlimited resources, and thus have to restrict themselves to dealing with a few at a time.

Furthermore, everyone concerned was aware of those ongoing court cases - it wasn't exactly under the rug...

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[reason]

CSIRO gets about 65-70% of its money directly from the government and is required to get the remainder from "external earnings", such as patent income.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[grim-one]

Perhaps, but you rely on everyone playing 'nice'. If any one nation/organisation/corporation decides to not play 'nice' they benefit immeasurably more than all other parties.

Also I still think that in your model only the mega-corporations benefit and the taxpayer is left holding the bill.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[jprupp]

So, exactly in what sense is being good related to being government as opposed to a billionaire in a LearJet. At least one of them had to earn what he has (yes, you're right, the billionaire!).

A government agency should open source and open patent absolutely everything she develops. Citizens have paid for all that through money that has been forced out of them by government, which is already bad enough. Now everyone has to pay again to get access to that tech. Pretty neat eh?.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Ducks breathe. You breathe, therefore you are a duck. Nicely reasoned dude!

That's not a duck, that's a DICK!

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Could it be that a lawsuit is their last resort not their first reaction? Kinda puts the kibosh on the whole patent troll idea that.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

M$, Apple (definitely needs a $ in it ), HP, Dell, etc they charge you anyway moron. That's why the money is there in the first place.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[king neckbeard]

I think you are overplaying the role of government, but you are right that not playing along has at least some short term benefits. That's why I say 'should'. It's a bit idealistic, but good research organizations should be more focused on research than profit. As for who benefits, it's the conglomerates AND the small and FOSS developers. Yes, taxpayers fund it, but that's how it goes with most government research anyway.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[XDirtypunkX]

Yes, but if CSIRO hadn't come up with the technology and some corporation had, we'd be paying the corporate R&D costs not to mention the royalties they imposed on other companies, which would be likely higher than what CSIRO are asking.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard that Google can do without any Microsoft whatsoever, and they pay taxes in the same country... surely an Australian research institute can do without Microsoft too...

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

if they don't have any product then they are not allowed to defend their patent, am I right?

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

i like option C
it's where australia sues the pants off a bunch of americans and get them to pay for our research by charging all of their consumers more
sure, we'll pay more too.. but there are more people in NYC than there are in australia. so we win.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[rahvin112]

It shouldn't be legal, nor is it ethical to use taxpayer money to develop research and then patent that research and profit from it. All government projects should be public domain. I have a serious issue any time someone uses government funded research to patent anything and I'm horrified by the idea of a government entity itself patenting anything at all. And the worst point is your defending it because "CISRO does good things". I don't care if they personally save the lives of 1 million people a day, they shouldn't be taking taxpayer money and using it to patent anything. I'd also be willing to bet that contrary to your assertion that someone in CISRO is directly benefiting from this patent, whether it's the director or review board or even the patent developer, bonuses are most certainly changing hands and I'm certain they are large.

Also we are talking 300 million from the computer makers and probably another 300 million from the telcom's, probably another 300 million from all the other entities using wifi and i bet it's a billion dollars in total revenue if they win all lawsuits. What does a research organization need with a that much money? I guarantee they aren't spending 1 billion a year on research. A staff of around 400 people would be around 30 million a year, with 1 b1illion that's full staff funding for 33 years. The amount of money collected here is far more than they can ever spend, so ask yourself, where is the excess going because they're getting government money too right?

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Capsaicin]

I suppose that's true. But a corporation is actually independent. Whereas a quango, like NASA, just does what they are told by their leash holders.

But it doesn't work like that in Australia. For a start the independent government-owned (but increasingly partially self-funding, for which see CSIROs patents), organisations are corporations (statutory corporations), and exhibit a large measure of independence from government. For instance the ABC (the public broadcaster) is the only news service that will regularly criticise government of all complexions. State owned media should never be on a leash, rather it should bite the hand that feeds it. I know this isn't always the case, but it is here.

On the other hand the (previous) Australian government was described, with some accuracy, by a senior Murdoch executive as "a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corp." I'm not sure that the change in government has affected that position substantially.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[zaphirplane]

The licensing costs will be paid for by earth's internet users, wonder what that is 50c a person ?
Whatever increase in prices it's a win for Australia, which get's a billion dollars.

If you want a country to subsidize the R&D an hence profits for foreign companies, lead the way.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[zaphirplane]

Great, can you provide a link to the open specs for rockets, space shuttles, satellites
How about the great open contributions by say the department for agriculture, commerce.

you are confusing releasing/contributing into open source / public domain and having all your work public domain.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[beaverdownunder]

Yeah, I was impressed by the CSIRO when I emigrated to Oz. Just so long as they get to keep all of the money for further research, and it doesn't somehow end up in the government's coffers ;) WiFi - (c) The Commonwealth of Australia...

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[beaverdownunder]

> Then why are they in East Texas District Court of all places? >If you don't want to be labeled a troll, don't act like one. Because you can only enforce a judgment on a US company if you get a victory in a US court, and that was likely the first court available to hear the case.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[AussieNeil]

Given Australia's population compared to the world market, we will still come out in front paying for the patent component of hardware made in the USA. Hopefully that means the CSIRO and anyone that benefits from their research and not just a few lawyers. I doubt anyone minds paying a small amount for the benefit of using this patent. If you don't want to pay the patent 'tax', just use network cable - security is better too.

The CSIRO, like many research facilities, has been under increasing pressure over the last decade or so to rely on self funding by generating and patenting IP thus reducing demand on the public purse.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Hognoxious]

they shouldn't be taking taxpayer money and using it to patent anything.

On what grounds? If I was a taxpayer then every dollar they can make for the government is (in theory at least) a dollar that the government will leave in my pocket.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're wrong and stupid.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Hognoxious]

Making money off it seems ultimately self-defeating.

If Australia was a completely closed economy you'd be right - it would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.

However it isn't, so you aren't.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the only expense is people and lab equipment isn't expensive. I think you are midjudging the costs of the types of research the CSIRO does, and the size of the employed workforce.

In 2007 the CSIRO was granted 2.8 billion AUD over four years.
http://www.csiro.au/news/FundingPackageForCSIRO.html

I guess you are one of those people who thinks NASA should be limited to a shoe-string budget as well? I thought so.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Moebius_6]

Increasing the price of WIFI instruments may add a bill to 30 million Australians

Agreed for the most part, but I thought our population was a third less then that?

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Lachlan Hunt]

The problem with the CSIRO here is that since they are governement owned, they are tax payer funded and instead of using that money to fund real research that benefits everyone, they're sinking it into legal battles in an attempt to extract more money from foreign companies. While they technically aren't patent trolls in the classical sense, since they certainly are doing some real work, their aggressiveness in enforcing their patents makes them almost as bad.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, you got me. That's a good point. Of course, if CSIRO chose, they could publish a paper to establish prior art and/or create a patent and set the royalties at $0. Everybody wins by having access to the technology and paying lower costs than they would have otherwise, including the Australian taxpayers that funded the research and are therefore out some money.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me try to 'correct' your statement...

However, I wonder whether the Australian taxpayers like the idea of everyone one in the world paying the right price on all the wireless devices that depend upon the technology invented by CSIRO? ... So, for the Australian multi-million (billion?) investment in CSIRO, the whole world gets to: A) pay CSIRO a small amount for the contribution they have made to mankind, B) fund a whole lot of lawyers for years and years because a whole bunch of (US in the case) business don't play by the rules.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Viridae]

You clearly don't have a clue how much research costs.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[ShadoHawk]

Thank a ton. I am now going to quit my job and go swimming... If only you would have told me I was a duck years ago it would have saved me a ton of time and money.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Gr8Apes]

Perhaps not. A brief search through the USPTO site reveals no patents awarded to John Sullivan, and the CSIRO patents are all regarding some modified form of cotton, near as I can tell from the summaries.

There is no patent link in TFA either. What is there is this quote:

The patent, which is owned by CSIRO, had its genesis in a 1977 paper O'Sullivan wrote about how a set of mathematical equations could be used to sharpen images from optical telescopes. He developed it while searching for exploding black holes.

Now, last I checked, a set of equations, or an algorithm, could not be patented. Not having access to the patent itself, we can draw no real conclusions. There is also the question of prior art since the equations were published in 1977.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[mldi]

Most of the world sees their government and its subsidiaries as more answerable than a corporate or multinational.

You can vote out a government, but a corporate monopolist is here to stay - until they get bought out by another one.

I have heard of this organisation before. If it is a choice between corporate pirates or a Quango I will usually try and avoid the corporates. In the UK, we are just about to close a load of quangos that have outstayed their welcome. I imagine that there are many here on /. who would love to close down Microsoft. Too bad. They are not going anytime soon and they are just one of many.

Right, when's the last time your representatives actually listened to you without a little palm greasing? Honestly, big giant corporations are behind god knows how many things lawmakers pass. They got the money, the time, and the resources to be highly influential in politics. You don't. Guess who wins.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[harlequinn]

Because the lawyers they are paying decided to.

These are Australian researchers who wouldn't know their arse from their elbow in regards to the American legal system. If the highly regarded and well paid lawyers say file in the East Texas District Court - then you file in the East Texas District Court.

Don't confuse the intentions and knowledge of the plaintiff with that of their lawyers.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[sumdumgai123]

Yeah, I live in East Texas. The only reason to be in court here is because the people in the jury pool here could never understand the technical details of any tech patent. The fax machine is a new invention here.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[DarthVain]

Holy Fuck, I am a duck too!

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[orient]

Is this some kind of weird US-centric bias?

No, it isn't weird, it's natural - most ./ers are american.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[victorhooi]

heya,

Well, as an Australian who's taxes funded the CSIRO research, I see no problem with it.

I mean, sure, we may pay more for those Wifi devices, but then so will everybody else - ultimately, they'll be net-flow in Australia's directions to the CSIRO, which they will use to fund more research.

The thing is, the CSIRO is very well respected, and has been consistently churning out good research, and helping pay PHD students since the 1920's...

I mean, they invented Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. And Aeroguard - not sure if that's available overseas, but if you're an Australian you'll know what it is (a very good insect repellent). Polymer banknotes. Relenza (flu drug). Rabbit virii (Myxomatosis and calicivirus). And a few hundred other inventions - many with a heavy agriculture bias, simply by the nature of the needs in Australia, but they have branched out a bit, as the previous list shows.

Interestingly enough, they were also apparently the first Australian organisation to use the internet - and so were able to register the domain http://www.csiro.au/ (note the lack of a .com).

If a US government institute created something, and a Australian or a French company stole their invention, I don't think I'd see Americans up in arms about how unfair the patent system was...lol...in fact, I think they'd probably think well, fair's fair, they're a non-profit government organisation, so they'll collect the royalties and fund more research. Research labs don't build themselves, and in the case of human drugs in particular, clinical trials are *incredibly* expensive to run.

Cheers,
Victor

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

she's a WITCH!!! BURN HER!!!

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[ckaminski]

Wrong. Every dollar paid by a company to the government or in taxes, is a fraction of a dollar out of YOUR pocket at the point of sale. While you can abstain from using wifi products and so not pay this "tax," it's still there, and it makes products more expensive all around.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Would be nice if you actually linked to an article the rest of us could read without a subscription.

And posting it 3 or 4 times doesn't help at all.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh boo hoo!

I'm quite happy to pay more for those devices to help fund the CSIRO so they can research stuff like sustainable farming so my kids can eat in the future. How exactly is using royalties from patented technologies to fund research into sustainable farming self-defeating? If you seem to think that having an awesome iPed with wireless technology is far more important than stuff like sustainable farming then I really do fear for our future.

The lawyers are probably crown prosecutors employed by the Australian government that can practice law in the US. Someone else may be able to confirm this.

Re:CSIRO are still good guys

[Hognoxious]

Every dollar paid by a company to the government or in taxes, is a fraction of a dollar out of YOUR pocket at the point of sale.

Really? Let's say the sale happens in Mumbai. I've never been to India, so by what mechanism is it taken from me?

Bracing for impact

[abbynormal brain]

After having to pay for a bullshit data plan for my son's phone on Verizon - part of me is glad they can potentially get it in the butt with this suite. However, I know that the one who will pay for this is me (and all the other users) of their services. How about a law that prohibits these companies from passing on their "mistakes" to the consumers?

Re:Bracing for impact

[macraig]

How about a law that prohibits these companies from passing on their "mistakes" to the consumers?

Sure... just as soon as Hogwarts becomes a real-life tourist attraction and I can step through a stargate to go on holiday.

Re: Bracing for impact

[Black Parrot]

How about a law that prohibits these companies from passing on their "mistakes" to the consumers?

How about a Congress that isn't owned by companies who want to pass their mistakes on to the consumers?

Oh, and I'd like a pony to go along with that.

Re:Bracing for impact

[gyrogeerloose]

How about a law that prohibits these companies from passing on their "mistakes" to the consumers?

Sure... just as soon as Hogwarts becomes a real-life tourist attraction and I can step through a stargate to go on holiday.

Well, Hogwarts will be available in about two weeks. With a little luck, the stargate will follow soon afterwards.

Re:Bracing for impact

[JWSmythe]

    The first may happen, but we're keeping the Stargate program under wraps. It's a bit too much for the average citizen to understand. How exactly do you explain "We've been doing interstellar travel for a few decades, and you've been watching the scifi disinformation about it."

    err, I mean, I don't know what this star-thing you're talking about is.

Re:Bracing for impact

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a law that prohibits these companies from passing on their "mistakes" to the consumers?

How about you learn simple economics so you stop saying such idiotic tripe?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence

That article is specifically about taxes, but the method applies to all deadweight losses. If lots of people stop buying because of a small price change, the business pays more. If few people stop (or even can stop), the consumer pays more. This is true no matter how a tax is levied, or how the deadweight loss manifests.

For once...

[macraig]

... I think I might actually be rooting for a patent lawsuit to succeed.

Re:For once...

[nephilimsd]

It's nice to see telecos reaping what they sowed, but in the end, consumers pay for everything. At some level, this will mostly harm end users.

Re:For once...

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright that lasts LIFE + 90 years might be bullshit.
Non commerical use of Commercial tech or copyright being illegal is bullshit.
Software patents are bullshit.
Business process patents are bullshit.

But patents on real technology, that only last 14 years then fall into the public domain is not bullshit.

Re:For once...

[Anonymous Coward]

He He He ... in Australia, rooting means something different.

Enjoy that!

Re:For once...

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, if it benefits me or something I support, then patent trolling is ok?

Re:For once...

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright that lasts LIFE + 90 years might be bullshit.

I suppose we should be grateful it's only the copyright. If the RIAA had their way, "life + 90 years" would be the minimum sentence for downloading a single song.

Re:For once...

[moortak]

We get harmed either way, at least this way some of the pain hits the companies that have been sodomizing us for decades.

Re:For once...

[obeythefist]

In this unusual circumstance, the assertion that "At some level, this will mostly harm end users." isn't really correct at all.

Without the invention of these technologies, the telco's wouldn't have a product to sell. These technologies were funded by the Australian taxpayer. A patent was placed to ensure the invested cost of research could be recovered. US industry saw the technology, liked it, and used it without permission.

Should the CSIRO win the case, they will use the money to develop more useful technology, which in turn will enrich the lives of consumers everywhere. This will mostly benefit end users. Should the CSIRO lose, the corporates will spend the money on more backroom deals, enforcement of oligopoly, DRM, lobbying, gold plated executive bathrooms and so on. This will mostly harm end users.

Re:For once...

[Dexter Herbivore]

Be careful what you say, in Australia "rooting" is slang for f*cking.

Re:For once...

[Anonymous Coward]

hehehe...

"Gonna go up to Wodonga for the weekend... "
"What route you gonna take?"
"meh... probably the missus... she's been good to me."

Re:For once...

[master_twig]

true, but at least the money will got for a (relatively) good cause for a change. CSIRO would use the money for further R&D in many many different fields, including sustainable energy and medicine. They've made some not-insignificant advances in those fields, I for one would like to see them kept well funded to continue to do so.

In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[ColaMan]

As I recall, these companies had an agreement with the CSIRO to implement their technology into the wifi standard in return for royalties. Everyone was happy with this, it was duly noted, etc.

Which mysteriously turned into a big collective "Fuck You" when the CSIRO asked for their royalties a few years later on.

So, as an Australian, I send a cheery "Fuck You" to those companies now, and I hope the CSIRO gets what they're owed, plus punitive damages.

Re:In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[jd]

What did you expect to happen? Companies never pay royalties unless there's a bigger thug than them leaning on them. Of course, this means the Australian Government has now p4ned those bits of the US economy not bought up by China.

Re:In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[thogard]

The real question is "Does the current AT&T have access to the old Bell Labs IP?" in which case this patent it dead if enough research is done.

Re:In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[squidgit]

[citation needed] The CSIRO WiFi patents have held up so far, I'm guessing a heap of really pissed already-settled Fortune 500's if there turns out to be applicable prior art. What makes you think Bell Labs IP contains the CSIRO antivenom?

Re:In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[thogard]

Because they have thousands of patents, rejected patents and prior art that cover all parts of this patent. The predecessor of the AT&T Pixel machine was making use of some of those techniques and that was at least 3 years before this patent. I'm guessing the developers of some of the radar gear in the AWACS might also have prior art. I know of one person who claimed to have prior art and since he has related patents I suspect he might be right. I've helped break about 20 patents so far but I'm not sure I want to break this one.

Re:In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[king neckbeard]

I don't think you have to own the patents to be protected by prior art. iirc, Red Hat recently used some old Amiga designs for defense in court against a patent troll.

Re:In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[initialE]

What you're saying is that there has been a violation of agreement between the companies and CSIRO. Why sue for patent infringement when that in itself is sufficient?

Re:In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[chgros]

Well, Bell Labs is now Alcatel-Lucent, so I doubt AT&T has access to its IP.

Re:In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[tepples]

I don't think you have to own the patents to be protected by prior art

True, defensive publication is an accepted way to put an invention into the prior art. But owning patents does allow a countersuit against anyone but a pure-play NPE.

Re:In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[thogard]

There was some agreement with the baby bells having some access to Bell Labs but I'm not sure what happened to that as Bells merged and renamed themselves AT&T.

Re:In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[Blakey Rat]

If what you say is true, then why is this a patent violation suit and not a breach-of-contract suit?

Sorry, I'm not sure I buy it. As an Australian, do you have a cite to back up your claim?

Re:In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[Barny]

Most of the patents they are suing over are the core signal filtering tech used by 802.11N wireless. Basically if you make anything that is compatible with 802.11N, you should be sending these guys a few $$$ (as prior settlements have shown).

Pretty much the whole industry said "cor struth, that's a nifty signal filter you have shown implemented in hardware, we will make that a part of the standard and pay you a small amount to use it", however when it came time to write the cheques the bits "pay you a small amount to" were completely forgotten. Now they are left with a large infrastructure they helped make based off technology that is supposed to be licensed.

So far a little aussie research company who gets paid about $80M a year by the government to help prop them up has recieved $250M in "back royalties", looks like its payday again soon :)

Re:In before the "Patent Troll" cries.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you provide even the most tentative citation to support this ludicrous assertion?

Patenting Math?

[Sponge Bath]

CSIRO, which is also now targeting Lenovo, Sony and Acer in new cases, says mathematical equations in its patents form the basis of Wi-Fi technology...

Re:Patenting Math?

[cappp]

I think the articles may be misstating the patents in question. You can't patent mathemetical formulae BUT you can patent their application. I would imagine that the patents specifically refer to the use of said equations in ensuring wi-fi reliability as suggested by the article's comment

The CSIRO first applied for its Australian Wi-Fi patent in 1992, which solved the problem of patchy wireless reception caused by waves bouncing off objects

Re:Patenting Math?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you expect? Math is being patented as "algorithms" for decades!

Re:Patenting Math?

[Johnno74]

I think the relevant US patent is this (5487069).

It appears to describe an special antenna setup as well as how to use the radio/antenna to get a data rate/ghz of bandwith ratio much better than previously practical.

So its not a math patent, or a pure software patent (although part of the implementation is software). It looks like something the patent system was designed to protect.

What's a CSIRO?

[Itninja]

For those of us not nerdy enough to actually know what the crap CSIRO is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Scientific_and_Industrial_Research_Organisation

Re:What's a CSIRO?

[idlemachine]

At what point will it become obvious to people like you that the rest of us are perfectly capable of looking up acronyms and unrecognised terms on the net by ourselves?

I find this constant bitching in almost every thread about unknown information by regular internet users to be one of the most incomprehensible aspects of slashdot. If a quick skim of any major search engine's first page of results cross-related against the context from the article summary doesn't leave you feeling enlightened then I can understand asking for more information. Otherwise, please do the search, then STFU and sit there, warm in the glow that you know something the rest of us don't.

Nice....

[skyggen]

When did Aussies get so good at American Business practices? I mean its either pay up or end "The Game"

info from http://en.swpat.org

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Here's what I have on their previous trolling:

• CSIRO wifi patent
• Patent trolls
• All businesses are targets - software patents aren't just a problem for software companies

swpat.org is a publicly editable wiki, help welcome.

Re:info from http://en.swpat.org

[batkiwi]

But they're not a patent troll. They:
-developed technology to fix an (at the time) unfixable problem using scientific research they'd be doing in signal analysis (funny enough related to astronomy!) for decades
-signed agreements with everyone stating that royalties would be owed
-asked for those agreements to be honored
-got "the bird" from the companies implementing the technologies
-asked for those agreements to be honored
-got "the bird" from the companies implementing the technologies
-asked for those agreements to be honored
-got "the bird" from the companies implementing the technologies
-asked for those agreements to be honored
-got "the bird" from the companies implementing the technologies
-sued

In what way is that patent trolling?

From the link you posted:
"an entity that does not have the capabilities to design, manufacture, or distribute products that have features protected by the patent"

Re:info from http://en.swpat.org

[Liam Pomfret]

Here's what I have on their previous trolling:

How can you possibly arrive at the idea that CSIRO are engaging in patent trolling? They were the ones who actually developed the technology, their patents hadn't been submarined in any way, and the only reason they're fighting now is because they still haven't been paid the royalties the companies originally agreed to give them when they first implemented the technology. This is an unusual case of patent law, not because of any supposed trolling, but because it's a superb example of how patent law was always meant to be used.

Re:info from http://en.swpat.org

[DarkKnightRadick]

This is an unusual case of patent law, not because of any supposed trolling, but because it's a superb example of how patent law was always meant to be used.

It...it...it can't be!

Re:info from http://en.swpat.org

[Anonymous Coward]

United States Patent No. 5,487,069

Looks a lot like the telebit modem http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=ERE3AAAAEBAJ&dq=4679227 hooked up to a bog standard RF TX RX output.

The earlier Cutter citation looks identical: http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=EMB0AAAAEBAJ&dq=3605019.

The patent looks to exist in the claims of "wireless lan" and Above 10GHz".

Re:That's one huge shrimp on the barbie

[Quabbe]

Too right that mate, and we don't bloody call 'em shrimp - they're fucking PRAWNS, as in District 9, you insensitive yank clod!

Re:That's one huge shrimp on the barbie

[biryokumaru]

I always believed that the "shrimp" term was an ironic statement referring to an extremely large, or "Australian-sized," steak. Is this not correct?

Re:That's one huge shrimp on the barbie

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently Paul Hogan missed the memo, mate.

Re:That's one huge shrimp on the barbie

[DarkKnightRadick]

I always believed that the "shrimp" term was an ironic statement referring to an extremely large, or "Australian-sized," steak. Is this not correct?

If it's under 16oz, it isn't even American sized. :p

Would this not be a case of double dipping...

[bleh-of-the-huns]

As I understand it, chipset makers license the technology. Those chipsets are then incorporated into whatever product is being made, be that phones, pda's, laptops, etc etc.

So in effect, the CSIRO wants to be be paid by the chipset makers, and then by the companies that use those chipsets, seems greedy.

Re:Would this not be a case of double dipping...

[Gadget_Guy]

So in effect, the CSIRO wants to be be paid by the chipset makers, and then by the companies that use those chipsets, seems greedy

I agree. I have no problem with the organisation receiving royalties from the companies who misuse their IP, but going after their customers is just not on. While I have no love for telecommunications companies, in principle they should only sue the companies who directly use their technology.

What's next? Sue all the customers of Verizon too?

Re:Would this not be a case of double dipping...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is where Patent law gets interesting.

OK, so you invent something, its REVOLUTIONARY, its so good and so important that everyone wants it.
You decide to be an anus, Patent it and say: "I will license this out at 100 dollars per device!"
Lets be kind, and say that this sticks (I dont know if there are ways around asking for rediculous sums for licensing, who knows)

but, Company B goes: "oh bugger this, I'll manufacture the product in China where they dont listen to this patent!"
Thats fine, as long as Company B only sells the product in china, what if they sell it to an american company who THEN sells it in the US?

now, AmericanCompany sells the magical product for whatever price, but because they didn't make it, they are off the hook for licensing!!

Patent law forsaw this. You can't import products that were manufactured without paying relevant Patent licensing. If you DID import products that didnt pay the license fee, then your company is on the hook for the cost of the licensing.

To get this straight, the CSIRO cant sue everyone, and get 5 lots of licensing costs per device. They have to get 1 lot of licensing per device. So if they could sue the manufacturers, they would! but they are probably in china and tell them to get stuffed, but the companies in the US re-selling these devices, are on the hook for selling non-licensed products.

They are on the hook RETROACTIVELY for devices sold.

And, you scoff when you say "sue all customers of verizon" but, if verizon say: "Fine, we WONT pay you, AND we wont sell devices!" Verizon is now on the hook for all devices sold in the past. 1 solution is to sue users of those devices, because they are USING a device that is not licensed. They are using technology (wifi) they haven't paid for!!

(so yes, if verizon don't pay up, then the customers of verizon are next - for all devices that are unlicensed)

Re:Would this not be a case of double dipping...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an assumption, but perhaps the telcos are purchasing their goods from china, or another country where patent infringement cannot be persued, nor royalties payed.
This then gives the patent holder the ability to persue the US purchaser for patent infringement.
Otherwise why don't I just take the latest patented costly medicine formula, convince a chinese pharma to make it cheap, then import it for cheap sale! What a great idea! No, the patent holder would sue me, not the chinese company.

Re:Would this not be a case of double dipping...

[c0lo]

I don't know... TFA says

[CSIRO] argues they have been selling devices that infringe its patents.

then

"There is another limit which is we only hold patents in 19 countries and so there are many countries where we don't hold patents including Russia and China.

A possible interpretation:
* if the manufacturer of the "offending chip" is in China, CSIRO will never stand a chance to get royalties from the chip manufacturer. So, it goes after the "buyers" of the chip, in countries where they can. Is it fair? Well... I think it may be, see my next point...
* ...IANAL, but selling products using a patented technology but in breach with the licensing (when your - US, I mean - very law says the patent is protected), seems to me close to the act of selling stolen goods

If the parallel is right (might not be), then usually...:
a. ...the buyer (of stolen good) is off-the-hook - thus Verizon customers don't need to pay for what they purchased
b. ... the seller need to support the damages and stop sourcing the goods from the thieves. Which means CSIRO may finish by having AT&T/Verizon/others forcing their chip supplier to get a license on the technology or loose the supplying contract

Does it make sense? Is it fair? Is it legally sound? I don't know, happy to receive some other opinions (before letting the time/East Texas courts come with an answer).

Re:Would this not be a case of double dipping...

[jrumney]

It is quite normal for chipsets to not include royalties for patents, as the chip by itself cannot infringe many patents (only ones related to IC packaging and design). It is not until it is put into a circuit with other components that the patented technology is realised, and there may be ways of using the chipset that do not infringe on the patent, or the finished product may only be going to countries where the patent is not recognized.

This is the way the system is supposed to work

[Swampash]

For once the patent system is actually working as intended.

I for one applaud the CSIRO, and I look forward to seeing the freeloading corporations that have made billions on the back of the CSIRO's research get fucked in the ass.

Re:This is the way the system is supposed to work

[Drathos]

I don't think so. These companies aren't the ones implementing 802.11 tech, they're reselling it. They should only be able to go after the actual infringing implementers, not every step along the way. In general, that means companies like Broadcom, Marvell, and Intel, not the companies that use their chips in their products or the companies that resell them.

Next thing you know, they'll be going after the consumers for buying infringing products.

Re:This is the way the system is supposed to work

[Theaetetus]

Next thing you know, they'll be going after the consumers for buying infringing products.

They could, but there are no statutory damages in patent law, so they would have to sue each consumer, at a cost of thousands of dollars each, to collect a few dollars in damages per.

Re:This is the way the system is supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

They could have also not waited 18 years. And they could have done something useful with their patent instead of selling or sitting on it. A patent exists to give an inventor enough time between invention and manufacture before others can copy the idea.

Re:This is the way the system is supposed to work

[Viridae]

From a post further up: What's happened is that : 1. CSIRO File and get a patent for WiFi 2.CSIRO is willing to license under RAND. Everyone says fuck off. 3. It sues Buffalo Tech and wins (this essentially upholds their claims) 4.CSIRO is willing to license under RAND. Everyone says fuck off. 5. CSIRO gets sued by MS, Intel, Netgear etc to overturn the patent. 6. They fail. 7. CSIRO is willing to license under RAND. Everyone says fuck off. 8. CSIRO sues 7 colors of shit out of everyone and everyone in that case settles. 9. CSIRO sues the remainder of people not paying royalities. It is noteworthy that the CSIRO has repeatedly said it was willing to license technology, and even sold to CISCO the startup the created for developing this (for 295 mil) which is why CISCO isn't in any suits (I think..). The IEEE asked them for a exemption and the CSIRO explicitly said no. The companies in question went ahead and implemented it, then sued to overturn the patent they knew they were infringing on.

Got links for that?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Are you saying they're only suing people with whom they previously signed a contract?

If that's true, then you have a good point. Can you pass me any links so that I can update the swpat.org page?

Otherwise, it looks like a research group, that indeed makes stuff, but has now realised that suing people is a better business than research. That might fail the "non-practising entity" definition that you quoted, but I don't think it fails the broader "troll" definition.

Re:Got links for that?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

> /Are you suggesting that the only way someone can legitimately enforce a patent is with a party that has been forewarned?/

No, I'm not suggesting that. However, if CSIRO is going to be painted as a good guy while suing software developers, I'd like to know what narrow limits they're placing on their aggression/retaliation in order to deserve that.

Am I safe? Is Red Hat safe? Are small businesses safe? Are other research institutes safe?

And the question I posted below: if CSIRO's law suits are justified because their business partners broke signed deals (as the original reply claims), why don't they sue for breach of contract instead of software patent infringement?

Re:Got links for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I dont know about any of the other stuff.

But they are the *good* guys.

Re:Got links for that?

[Luckyo]

If they're genuinely good guys, I'll document that too. Do you have any links to back up your story?

Your story could be a true example of software patents being used to prevent mega-corps from abusing their power, but it's exactly the sort of story a PR department would come up with regardless of the truth.

So it comes down to numbers and proofs. Can anyone help me look for documents to answer:
* Has CSIRO promised to only sue companies that broke deals with CSIRO?

Who would ever promise something like that and why? Examples please. Such promise would make about as much sense as putting a cart ahead of the horse. You're supposed to make "deals" based on patents you own, not the other way around.

* Does CSIRO has massive royalties to pay? (their law suits are estimated to be worth more than a billion USD, so the royalties owed would have to be of this magnitude to justify continued enforcement)

This screams of "I want to invent something once and get paid for life" mentality. This is NOT the way patent law was originally meant for. CSIRO does what patent law WAS ORIGINALLY MEANT FOR - funnel the money back into the research. Not royalties. Royalties in these cases will always be parasitic in nature, sucking off the resources from the actual research.

* Where are the agreements that these companies signed with CSIRO?

Most likely, like most contracts, these are not public documents. They can obviously be examined by court of law, however courts are required by law, for obvious reasons, not to disclose such contracts to random people.
Essentially, we have no way of ever finding out, unless one of the parties decides to come out and show the contracts to us, and doing so would most likely weaken said party's negotiating position.
Therefore we are highly unlikely to ever see any of the documents.

* Which companies signed the contracts?

This is a PATENT. You do not need to sign a contract to owe money for using technology based on a patent. Usually contract is signed after weighing the patent and its usefulness - not the other way around as you seem to imply.

* Why can't CSIRO take them to court for breach of contract?

They are doing this as we discuss the topic, and have been doing it for some time now. Read the OP.

Re:Got links for that?

[jeffrey.endres]

Otherwise, it looks like a research group, that indeed makes stuff, but has now realised that suing people is a better business than research. That might fail the "non-practising entity" definition that you quoted, but I don't think it fails the broader "troll" definition.

So you think they have stopped doing research? I've read that they allocated a large part of the settlement as an ongoing research fund.

I'm getting the impression that you feel anybody that has a patent and enforces it is a patent troll. Is that what you mean by broader "troll" definition? Your website defines it as a company that acquires patents simply to demand royalties. I would think that is the idea of patents in general though isn't it? You patent something to make money from it. Perhaps you need to tighten your definition a little bit.

Re:Got links for that?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

> So you think they have stopped doing research?

Nope. I'm sure they'll continue with research.

One related worry I have is that now that they've shown their colours, I hope their future research does produce patentable software ideas that will in turn be used for further litigation. Society can get by just fine without that sort of research. Patent aggression is a nuisance, whether it comes from Microsoft, CSIRO, or Acacia Intellectual Ventures.

Re:Got links for that?

[king neckbeard]

They would probably fit under a non-practicing entity. I don't think you can buy a CSIRO wireless card. They better be careful, as I think there is at least one patent on the non-practicing entity business method.

Re:Got links for that?

[jeffrey.endres]

If they're genuinely good guys, I'll document that too. Do you have any links to back up your story?

I suspect that you won't. You have an overly broad definition of patent troll to include a research organization that found a revolutionary way of dealing with a complicated problem in wireless communications. This solution allowed WiFi and other wireless technologies to become popular and useful. I think that it is up to you to document why you feel that CSIRO isn't doing research and merely trolling patents.

Here is a brief summary and timeline of the development of the patent.

Re:Got links for that?

[Theaetetus]

* Has CSIRO promised to only sue companies that broke deals with CSIRO?

You ask for this in many of your posts... Are we to understand that if CSIRO only sues people for patent infringement when those people broke deals with them, you'd be okay with that? But if they sue anyone they didn't have a deal with, that's wrong?
In other words, it seems like you want CSIRO to only sue for breach of contract, not patent infringement. Meaning that, in your preferred reality, anyone who wants to use CSIRO's invention should never, ever contact them for a license because if they do, they can be sued, but if they don't, they're immune.

Why would anyone ever agree to pay royalties when they could just use the same IP for free, provided they never sign any contracts?

Re:Got links for that?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Thanks for the link. I've added it to the article. More welcome.

> why you feel that CSIRO isn't doing research

But this isn't my opinion. I'm sure they are still doing research. (But I sure how they don't develop any more patentable software ideas.)

CSIRO certainly falls outside of the "non-practising entity" category. "Troll" is broader - the border isn't clear, but Microsoft has been accused many times of being a troll. Sure the develop and distribute lots of software, but they also act like a troll that demands a toll to cross a generally useful bridge.

Re:Got links for that?

[king neckbeard]

Part of the argument of those defending CSIRO was that they had allegedely made agreements with these big companies, and then got shafted because the companies in question didn't deliver their end of the agreement.

As I recall, these companies had an agreement with the CSIRO to implement their technology into the wifi standard in return for royalties. Everyone was happy with this, it was duly noted, etc.

If there was no agreement or they are seeking revenge from the companies that breached this alleged contract, this part of the defense falls apart.

Re:Got links for that?

[obeythefist]

You do realise that the CSIRO is a government organisation, therefore, is the Australian Government, and you are accusing the Australian Government of being unable to produce anything of value?

I suppose that you can argue that they don't (see: Senator Conroy, Internet Villian of the Year 2009).

On the flipside I don't believe governments really fit into the narrow scope of a patent troll. How about, Australian taxpayers invested in researching technology that may otherwise never be developed. US corporations rip that technology off despite knowing full well that it was patented. I advocate that the corporations need to pay up. You advocate that corporations, some of whom actually are patent trolls, should be able to ignore patents if they are held by the Australian taxpayer's organisation for scientific and industrial research, to prevent that organisation from developing more technologies?

Re:Got links for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://mentor.ieee.org/802.11/public-file/07/11-07-2619-00-0000-802-11-wg-chairs-received-email-letter-response-from-csiro-regarding-loa-requests.doc

www.ieee802.org/CSIRO-Patent-Memo-19JUL2007.pdf

here the CSIRO got sued first:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Breaking/CSIRO-hit-with-wifi-patent-suit/2005/05/19/1116361656580.html

http://www.zdnet.com.au/australian-government-defends-wireless-patent-139192549.htm

and with a timeline here :
http://www.builderau.com.au/news/soa/No-backdown-from-CSIRO-over-Wi-Fi-patents/0,339028227,339282521,00.htm

Look, that's all I can be bothered to find now, but just google LOA, 802.11a,g,n CSIRO and the patent number in various combinations, and you'll find loads of crap.

What's happened is that :
1. CSIRO File and get a patent for WiFi
2.CSIRO is willing to license under RAND. Everyone says fuck off.
3. It sues Buffalo Tech and wins (this essentially upholds their claims)
4.CSIRO is willing to license under RAND. Everyone says fuck off.
5. CSIRO gets sued by MS, Intel, Netgear etc to overturn the patent.
6. They fail.
7. CSIRO is willing to license under RAND. Everyone says fuck off.
8. CSIRO sues 7 colors of shit out of everyone and everyone in that case settles.
9. CSIRO sues teh remainder of people not paying royalities.

It is noteworthy that the CSIRO has repeatedly said it was willing to license technology, and even sold to CISCO the startup the created for developing this (for 295 mil) which is why CISCO isn't in any suits (I think..).
The IEEE asked them for a exemption and the CSIRO explicitly said no.
The companies in question went ahead and implemented it, then sued to overturn the patent they knew they were infringing on.

Fuck them, the CSIRO deserves every penny they get out of these fuckers.

Re:Got links for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's not a software patent; it's essentially a scientific one (i.e. the very reasons patents were invented). I suspect this reply is just another case of "oh my god, this could apply to me--personal outrage!".

Re:Got links for that?

[king neckbeard]

That's a very pro-CSIRO viewpoint. It could very well be that CSIRO got a trivial and obvious patent, others developed the 802.11 tech independently, and CSIRO started bitching, and nobody wanted to pay them. The truth probably lines up somewhere in between these two. I'd say the technology or something equivalent certainly would have been eventually developed. It might have taken 10 years longer, but we'd get probably still get there.

Re:Got links for that?

[omni123]

How about the knowledge that this is not a software patent? Everyone here is always up-in-arms about software patents (hell, you have a wiki devoted to it) but this is just a case of you missing the forest for the trees. This is a scientific research patent which if you had bothered to read the actual patent for does not cover any software implementation; it covers the theories behind WiFi (and some low level scientific theories such as mQAM, BPSK, etc).

Re:Got links for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was in the CSIRO's shoes, and the manufacturers who failed to properly license my patents (as originally designated in contract) was distributing products based on said patented reserach... I would do the following:

1) Sue manufacturers for breach of contract (and due to the breach of contract, manufacturers will not be required to pay royalties for past-sold products - which allows for #3)
2) Force manufacturers to pay royalties for all future products (continued revenue stream)
3) Sue all redistributers of manufacturers products, to get entitled royalties for all previously sold products - and severely damage the customer base of said manufacturers - as to serve a point to anyone who even thinks of not paying royalties for patented technology again.

Which seems to be what the CSIRO is doing, slowly but surely - and hence is targeting not just the manufacturers, but also distributers (eg: AT&T/Verizon/etc) who're selling products using said chips.

So I'd say red hat (who sell system infrastructure packages, which would have wireless tech) and small businesses (who sell wireless tech) are NOT safe, if they're distributing products based off unlicensed patented technology - as would be expected.

Re:Got links for that?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

> How about the knowledge that this is not a software patent?

Yes, that sort of information would be great. If you could explain here, I might see it and add it to the wiki page. Or even better, if you could add something yourself to he wiki page, even a rough draft, then it would be sure to get mentioned.

Re:Got links for that?

[Dexter Herbivore]

Why the hell should we contribute to a wiki of someone who:

A) Quite obviously hasn't done any othe research on this case himself

B) Continues to argue a viewpoint that has no practical application to the argument at hand.

Re:Got links for that?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Thanks for the links, I've added them all to the article.

Re:Got links for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does CSIRO has massive royalties to pay?

Yes, but only to the LLA (Lolcats Licensing Authority).

Re:Got links for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are a practicing entity. Well, not any more, but they did set up a startup for this purpose, and sold it to CISCO for 295 million. Which is possibly why CISCO isn't mentioned in any of the suits. As far as I can tell, CISCO bought the company in order to obtain the right to use this technology, not the actual patents themselves.

The CSIRO actually starts up many ventures after inventing stuff, partnering with a whole bunch of interested companies. They're pretty open about it, just check their website for opportunities (you don't even need to be a massive corporation either).

It's always risky investing in new technology startups, but it's a win win situation for companies genuinely interested in sharing and incorporating R&D, rather than just using other peoples R&D.

Re:Got links for that?

[shutdown -p now]

Am I safe? Is Red Hat safe? Are small businesses safe? Are other research institutes safe?

From being sued for not honoring someone's legitimate patent? No, of course not. Why should you be?

Re:Got links for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

The CSIRO Patents cover a lot more than just software. It is a complete signal processing system that includes hardware and software. As stated before you cannot patent an algorithm and strictly speaking software should fall under the algorithm principle. But if the software is just a part of a whole system then the whole system is covered under the patent. It would be possible for some one to create another patent that uses different hardware and the same software. The hardware would need to be quite different to make sure it doesn't infringe on the existing CSIRO patent.

As the CSIRO had a need (develop a better radio telescope) and they actually developed and built this system they are the true inventors and cannot be considered as trolls

Re:Got links for that?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

If you read the wiki article, you'll see it's based on plenty of research.

They're called a non-practising entity by Patently-o. That's a generally patent-holder friendly site, and "non-practising entity" is the strictest possible definition of "troll".

In this thread, I'm getting a whole load of baseless accusations, and a tonne of "Oh no they're not", but I'm just looking for the reason why *this* non-practising entity is a "good guy" when other non-practising entities are trolls?

Can anyone help draw that line?

Re:Got links for that?

[Viridae]

Yeah Cisco went the legal avenue, and I bet they are now feeling quite smug about it :)

Re:Got links for that?

[Viridae]

Red hat is fine unless they are also manufacturing hardware. The patent covers a complete solution to the problem including software, mathematical formulas and hardware. I'm all for punishing people who patent the obvious, this wasn't the case.

Re:Got links for that?

[harlequinn]

How about you demonstrate how they are "non-practicing" to the rest of us.

Show us what they do and don't do. In detail please.

Can you do that for us?

Re:Got links for that?

[omni123]

In this thread, I'm getting a whole load of baseless accusations, and a tonne of "Oh no they're not", but I'm just looking for the reason why *this* non-practising entity is a "good guy" when other non-practising entities are trolls?

Can anyone help draw that line?

I guess it all comes down to your definition of troll, really. I think the fact that they are non-practising is not an implication of being a troll (likewise, patent trolling can be done by practising entities just fine) but in my mind trolling is patenting for the sole purpose of gaining the ability to sue for patent infringement where the defendant had no reasonable opportunity to legally make use of the research.

That isn't the case here. The CSIRO had an agreement with these entities, an agreement that they failed to uphold their end of. They had every reasonable chance under the law to make use of technology that the CSIRO had invested millions of research in; consumers benefitted from these technologies where the cost of royalties to be paid to the CSIRO were (presumably) passed on to the consumer. In my mind a patent troll would of waited for major companies to make use of their research, without intervening and warning them or offering them a royalty option, and then sued them for infringement.

Conversely the CSIRO exceeded their legal obligations and negotiated a fair deal for use of the technology. The money they were to make from these royalties was then to be put back in to further research that would again benefit consumers and the cycle continues; a perfect world and exactly why patents were invented.

Re:That's one huge shrimp on the barbie

[Quabbe]

It's 100% incorrect. Shrimp refers to the decapods we affectionately know as Prawns here in Australia. Crocodile Dundee (characterised by Paul Hogan) was an American selling the Australian image to Americans.

Re:That's one huge shrimp on the barbie

[Quabbe]

Just plain wrong. Crocodile Dundee (characterised by Paul Hogan) was an American movie studio selling the Americanised Australian image to Americans. Hoges sold out, mate.

Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't aware of any carriers manufacturing their own wireless chips. Which ones are?

Re:That's one huge shrimp on the barbie

[Quabbe]

Sorry, that should have read: Crocodile Dundee (characterised by Paul Hogan) was an American movie studio selling the Americanised Australian image to Americans. Hoges sold out, mate.

I Can't Wait

[fm6]

wait for it -- East Texas District Court.

That court is popular with IP plaintiffs. Reasons cited: sympathetic jurors, lots of judges who don't need to brush up on IP law, low backlogs. We've actually been here before:

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/07/24/1236255/Patent-Trolls-Target-Small-East-Texas-Companies?from=rss

Got links for that?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

If they're genuinely good guys, I'll document that too. Do you have any links to back up your story?

Your story could be a true example of software patents being used to prevent mega-corps from abusing their power, but it's exactly the sort of story a PR department would come up with regardless of the truth.

So it comes down to numbers and proofs. Can anyone help me look for documents to answer:
* Has CSIRO promised to only sue companies that broke deals with CSIRO?
* Does CSIRO has massive royalties to pay? (their law suits are estimated to be worth more than a billion USD, so the royalties owed would have to be of this magnitude to justify continued enforcement)
* Where are the agreements that these companies signed with CSIRO?
* Which companies signed the contracts?
* Why can't CSIRO take them to court for breach of contract??

That sort of info would be great to document. Thanks.

Something's not right.

[bynary]

CSIRO, which is also now targeting Lenovo, Sony and Acer in new cases...

How can they sue Lenovo?

...there are many countries where we don't hold patents including Russia and China...

Isn't Lenovo a Chinese company?

Re:Something's not right.

[king neckbeard]

Lenovo sells hardware outside of China. If you want to sell things in the US, you have to follow US law. If you want to sell things in Germany, you have to follow German law.

So you don't want to use WiFi after all, eh?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

How about a law that prohibits these companies from passing on their "mistakes" to the consumers?

When they don't make money from a product or service they don't provide it. (Even if you force them to provide it, do that to enough products/services and the company as a whole dries up and blows away - unless you "bail them out" by - guess what - giving them still more money, which comes from - guess where - the consumers' pocket by way of taxes or inflation.)

It's just another form of price control. Set it too high and you cost the consumer more than a non-regulated market would have cost. Set it too low and the product or service becomes scarce. Your proposal falls into the "set it too low" camp.

Re:eat my shorts slashdot !!

[Anonymous Coward]

An anonymous reader notes that CSIRO has sued Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile in — wait for it — East Texas District Court

If we can't abolish patents, can we at least kick East Texas out of the Union?

Why they're called a troll

[ciaran_o_riordan]

To software developers, CSIRO is an aggressive patent litigator. The karma they earn through their agricultural research doesn't change this.

Maybe we should always specify that "CSIRO's *software department*" acts like a patent troll, but given that the software context is pretty clear here, that doesn't seem necessary.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Capsaicin]

To software developers, CSIRO is an aggressive patent litigator.

I've never been sued by the CSIRO, have you?

They seem to take action only against people who make unlicensed use of the patents they own. No trolling there. Why should CSIRO not be paid for what they develop?

Re:Why they're called a troll

[ciaran_o_riordan]

I've never been sued by the CSIRO, have you?

No troll has sued me, and no gunman has shot me, but both exist. By your standard, not only do patent trolls not exist, but patents don't exist since no one's attacked me with one.

They seem to take action only against people who make unlicensed use of the patents they own.

And, how does that differentiate them from any other patent troll?? MPEG-LA does the same, as does Acacia and Blackboard and all the other trolls.

I'm not sure where you're going with that.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Capsaicin]

how does that differentiate them from any other patent troll

If people actually develop new patentable technology how does enforcing their legal rights over that make them a patent troll? Even if they don't develop, but only acquire a valid patent, how does suing for that make them a troll?

Re:Why they're called a troll

[harlequinn]

I do believe this patent covers the hardware and software implemented in every 802.11 wireless device.

According to this article the patent was granted in 1996 and the IEEE 802.11a standard was ratified three years later.

http://www.csiro.au/news/CSIRO-honours-wireless-team.html

The only reason the previous lawsuit settled instead of going to a jury trial is because the coalition of companies being sued knew the gig was up. If they thought they were in the right and were using their own technology then they would have gone to trial and probably won. Instead they backed down since they weren't using their own technology.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Even if they don't develop, but only acquire a valid patent, how does suing for that make them a troll?

That's the entire business model of Acacia and Intellectual Ventures. These are the quintessential patent trolls.

Everyone calls them trolls. I'm not sure what your question is. Why "troll"? Well, I guess it's a cultural reference to a bad monster that lives under bridges and demands payment for crossing said bridge.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[dwillden]

But when was the base line for the standard established. 802.11n was formally standardized in 2009, yet I bought a 801.11n capable router in 2007.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Capsaicin]

That's the entire business model of Acacia and Intellectual Ventures. These are the quintessential patent trolls.

My understanding of a patent troll, which seems to be the definition being used in regard to a NPE on the page you cited above also, is someone who floats an idea and lodges a patent which is invalid by reason of their having not specified an actual method or design by which that idea is to be realised.

Remember what a patent actually is. It is an agreement to publish to the world a method for realising some original invention. If a third party cannot from the patent reproduce the invention, it's obviously not a patent, yes?

CSIRO developed actual working hardware. It specified the design to such an extent that 3rd parties have misappropriated their work and are illegally (facially) making money out of this misapproriation. You are perhaps using this design right now. It's real, it's an original invention, it is most certainly not a troll.

by defintio

As an Australian taxpayer, I find it objectionable that you think I should donate my money to foreign private corporations only to have to buy back what I paid to develop. We invested millions of dollars in this and we would like the return for our investment, thank you very much.

Oh and as far as patents existing, I definitely know they do, because I had a patent (which is was a troll by a looser definition) hanging over the work I did. We were told "you develop that and see what we do." We called their bluff. It was a bullshit patent. That might give some context to "I haven't been sued [or even threatened] by the CSIRO," which was in any case a quip leading into my actual point that they only sue on valid patents they rightfully own. Your logical analysis was supercilious.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[ciaran_o_riordan]

CSIRO developed actual working hardware.

And Microsoft actually developed a file format. Do you think Microsoft should have a 20 year monopoly on each file format they invent? Or is the "actually develop" justification limited to CSIRO?

Re:Why they're called a troll

[BrokenHalo]

In any case, CSIRO isn't acting against software developers, it is asking to be paid royalties by hardware manufacturers who have been freeloading on their WiFi technology for about a decade. Dell, HP, Microsoft, Intel, Nintendo and Toshiba have already paid up, and now CSIRO are asking Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to do likewise.

US companies expect and require everybody to pay royalties on their technology, so they have no right to complain when developers from other countries do likewise. Same rules for everybody: it's only fair.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because patented "Mathematical Equasions" are software....
I haven't looked much in to this, but they patented the way wifi signal is generated, and/or recieved. Software has nothing to do with this.

Really, when you read the word patent, you immediately think of software? There ARE valid industries where patents are needed, like research and development of science like medicines. Without patents why would any company want to spend millions to research new medicine when someone will just reverse engineer it and sell it at a lower price?

I know I'm just an AC, but the parent should be marked as a troll

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Surt]

The conventional definition of patent troll is definitely a body who 'develops' some obvious piece of technology, but never commercializes or publicizes it, instead waiting and hoping for some other group to do the obvious thing, and then to have to pay them big money for having done nothing.

The key element of the trolling problem is that the invention is obvious, but got through the patenting process because the patent office is overwhelmed and incompetent. The supposed 'invention' is being invented over and over again because EVERY engineer comes to the same conclusion when faced with the problem. Nobody is stealing CSIROs ideas and commercializing them, they are coming up with the SAME ideas and commercializing them. Patents were not intended to reward the first to write down every obvious idea, but that is what they have become, and those who abuse the process are labeled trolls.

CSIRO are trolls.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Barrinmw]

I thought there was some rules about patents not being enforceable against industry standards?

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Capsaicin]

The key element of the trolling problem is that the invention is obvious, but got through the patenting process because the patent office is overwhelmed and incompetent.

Yes "originality" as I expressed it is more correctly described as a "non-obvious improvement." In any case the patent would still be invalid (if tested in court) because it lacks the requisite originality/non-obviousness (how ever you want to put it). So I pretty much covered that.

It's not that the patent office is overwhelmed and incompetent, it's that increasingly, and this is the certainly the case in Australia, and I believe in the US also, patents are granted presumptively. The week after this innovation in the patenting process came into effect some engineer in Melbourne patented the wheel. :)

Nobody is stealing CSIROs ideas and commercializing them, they are coming up with the SAME ideas and commercializing them.

I'm not a telecommunications hardware engineer, so I can't judge the originality of CSIROs invention on technical grounds. OTOH it's stretches credibility to imagine Intel, Microsoft, HP, Toshiba et al. simply rolling over and paying up for an invention which so obviously lacked the novel step as to render the patent invalid. If the current defendants, on considering their position don't do the same, we should have a good assessment of how original the invention actually way.

CSIRO are trolls.

That would seem to be an opinion unfounded in reality.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Surt]

It is almost impossible in the US to get a patent overturned for obviousness. It has happened a handful of times (I believe less than 10, but I'm having difficulty finding an appropriate citation). Even if you can demonstrate prior art it is extremely expensive, to the tune of millions of dollars of litigation. I expect that the patent licensing fees were less than the expected cost of litigation.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Capsaicin]

[Getting] a patent overturned for obviousness has happened a handful of times (I believe less than 10, but I'm having difficulty finding an appropriate citation).

I'm not surprised you are having difficulty, as this would seem a difficult thing to quantify. Cases where obviousness is most obvious (sorry), would rarely be appealed or reported. In the cases that do make it into superior courts this question will inherently be more contentious, so you wouldn't expect a high success rate at overturning on obviousness. Perhaps the patents office has a definitive figure?

Be that as it may, the CSIRO is a serious and highly respected research organisation. CSIRO scientists do real development in all sorts of fields. They do not fly patent kites in the hope of trolling (it's a fishing term actually, nothing to do with hairy monsters) actual developers with patents and it is scurrilous, or at best ignorant, to suggest they do. What is more the money the CSIRO does earn from its inventions is ploughed right back into further research. They are pretty much the polar opposite of patent trolls.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Hognoxious]

Maybe we should always specify that "CSIRO's *software department*" acts like a patent troll

Still wrong. They don't just buy up overly broad patents and ambush people. They really did develop the technology that supports WiFi.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Hognoxious]

Nobody is stealing CSIROs ideas and commercializing them, they are coming up with the SAME ideas and commercializing them.

An idea would be "hey, wouldn't it be great if there was something like ethernet, but without wires!" - but you can't patent a wish list. Ideas are frankly ten a penny.

CSIRO came up with an actual working method to achieve it - that's what's being ripped off here.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Hognoxious]

They do not fly patent kites in the hope of trolling (it's a fishing term actually, nothing to do with hairy monsters)

The fishing term is "trawl".

Re:Why they're called a troll

[jackbird]

Both are related, but distinct fishing terms. To trawl is to drag a net behind a large fishing vessel, to troll is to cruise slowly with a hook and line in the water. The RIAA filesharing lawsuits are an example of a litigation trawl.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Surt]

The problem is that actual working methods are a dime a dozen. A patent is supposed to be non-obvious too, and that's whats missing. Oh, and the ripped off part too, since none of the companies with this tech is being accused of stealing it, they're being accused of reinventing.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Surt]

It's not the fishing term, but that's beside the point.
The fact that they do actual research doesn't help their case, they need to stop patenting the obvious to be clear of the scorn heaped upon the trolls. I could spend my days filing for obvious patents, calling it research, and hoping a major company stumbles into my quagmire too. That wouldn't make me not a troll, that would make me the definition of a troll.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Capsaicin]

From the OED

troll, v
...
13. Angling. intr. To angle with a running line (? orig. with the line running on a 'troll' or winch); also (trans.) to fish (water) in this way; spec. a. to fish for pike by working a dead bait (usually on a gorge hook) by a sink-and-draw motion; b. (trans. and intr.), to angle with a spinning bait: = SPIN v. 12a, b; c. in U.S. and Sc. use (perh. through association with trail or trawl), to trail a baited line behind a boat. Also fig.

Re:Why they're called a troll

[Capsaicin]

It's not the fishing term, but that's beside the point.

It is though (see above), but yes, it's beside the point.

they need to stop patenting the obvious

Before or after you stop beating your wife? ;)

You say they do, I think it's clear (just from the concessions of the major companies who made unlicensed use of their technology) that you are mistaken. If it actually gets to court we'll let the expert witnesses have it out and we'll have an answer to that question which is in some measure more informed than your or my opinion. I know you think that patents rarely get overturned for obviousness in court, but since obvious patents rarely get to court (eg. the guys who had a go at our project) that is hardly surprising.

I could spend my days filing for obvious patents, calling it research, and hoping a major company stumbles into my quagmire too. That wouldn't make me not a troll, that would make me the definition of a troll.

Yes I agree and I would add that you have very ably summed up why it is so wrong to call the CSIRO scientists patent trolls. They don't spend their days filing for obvious patents, they spend their days doing ground breaking research. They don't just call it research, it actually is. They don't file patents in the hope that a major company will stumble into the quagmire, they file patents for the new and novel inventions they devise as they are legally required to and in order to further more ground breaking research without unduly impacting on consolidated revenue.

For all the reasons you give they are not patent trolls.

Math patents, because SW patents weren't bad enuf.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently this is a math patent; perhaps defendants are reading the winds that Bilski will come down against the 'idea' patent garbage.

Top three? Nope

[markdavis]

>"Now, the organization is bringing the fight to the top three US mobile carriers in a new suit targeting Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile."

Um, sorry, but the top three US mobile carriers are Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint. T-Mobile is a distant fourth.

Why all that is wrong

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Who would ever promise something like that and why?

Lots of patent holders make promises limiting who they will use their patents agressively against. They do it so that people will work with them and to avoid being branded a troll or a threat. Here's a list: Patent promises. Even Microsoft has made some (very limited) promises.

CSIRO does what patent law WAS ORIGINALLY MEANT FOR - funnel the money back into the research

Nope. Patents exist to progress technology for the public benefit. Not to make money for researchers. Sometimes the two goals go together, sometimes they don't. In this case, we have an organisation claiming veto power on anyone wanting to implement wif. That monopoly's probably not in the public's interest.

Essentially, we have no way of ever finding out, unless one of the parties decides to come out and show the contracts to us

Exactly. So, if this is private inter-company horse trading, why is any outsider using these broken agreements to justify CSIRO's patent aggression? For all we know, there's nothing of substance in these agreements.

Usually contract is signed after weighing the patent and its usefulness - not the other way around as you seem to imply

If you read the story, or people's comments here, you'll see that CSIRO seems to have made deals with a bunch of tech companies, then the companies broke the agreement (according to unconfirmed slashdot comments), and *this* act is what justifies CSIRO suing people (again, according to the same slashdot comments).

* Why can't CSIRO take them to court for breach of contract?

They are doing this as we discuss the topic, and have been doing it for some time now.

Oh. You're the first to claim this and it's not mentioned in any of the news articles. Got any links to back up this scoop? Everyone else thinks CSIRO is taking people to court over software patent infringement, not breach of contract.

Re:Why all that is wrong

[Namarrgon]

Patents exist to progress technology for the public benefit.

All the research CSIRO does is for the public's benefit. That doesn't mean they have to give it away free to the entire world, after Australian taxpayers funded it.

Nor are CSIRO "vetoing" anyone from implementing wifi - they're simply asking for a reasonable royalty for the work they did. The lawsuits only started after companies knowingly used CSIRO's technology over other, inferior alternatives, and refused for years to licence it. I doubt many of these companies actually signed contracts with CSIRO, but they certainly and knowingly chose to use the technology that CSIRO developed, then ignored any request for the compensation they knew was owed. The fact that these companies are now settling for significant sums of money instead of fighting it out in court means they know they're in the wrong, and always were.

I'm not even sure why you think this is a software patent. References to "data processing" components are only part of the patent, and there's lots of descriptions of tranceivers hubs, error correction and demodulation techniques, circuit switching and circuit diagrams.

Re:Why all that is wrong

[ciaran_o_riordan]

> All the research CSIRO does is for the public's benefit.

Ah, yeh, so that's why anyone using that research has to ask permission, negotiate terms, and pay (if permission is granted)?

Contrast: the world wide web. No patents, massive advance, no one complaining about not getting their fair share. That's public benefit.

Re:Why all that is wrong

[Namarrgon]

Yes, that's right. As I said, "public benefit" is NOT the same as "giving it away for free". Or do you think making 802.11a/g/n *possible* is not a benefit to the public? If CSIRO has their way, we'll have to pay slightly more for it, but the public still gets all the benefits of faster wifi.

And I think you're sadly misguided if you think the web is all being given away for free (see: copyright, advertising, subscription sites and paywalls), or that nobody's complaining about not getting their fair share (see: News Corp, and Viacom vs YouTube, just to name a couple).

Re:Why all that is wrong

[countach]

I think the point is that CSIRO fund projects that benefit the public and which otherwise would not get funded. Things like figuring out how to solve ecological disasters like rabbit plagues and various things. Sometimes they can recoup money for what they do, sometimes they can't but that's not their primary motivation.

Duverger's law

[tepples]

You can vote out a government

Duverger's law is that a plurality election system will converge to two parties. If both parties support a measure, such as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, how can one vote out that kind of government?

Re:Duverger's law

[mirix]

Move to proportional representation, obviously. Plurality is broken, horribly.

Re:Duverger's law

[fustakrakich]

Consider those two as one (because they are), and find a second party.

Re:Duverger's law

[Anonymous Coward]

In the U.S.A. this would lead directly to Balkanization through secession. Now someone mod us O.T.

Re:Duverger's law

[evilviper]

If both parties support a measure,

Lucky for you, "parties" don't get elected. Individuals do. And you'll find plenty of politicians from both parties that disagree with their party on plenty of issues...

Re:Duverger's law

[tepples]

How can a minor party rise to national power without the support of the movie-industry-owned mainstream news media?

Re:Duverger's law

[tepples]

Lucky for you, "parties" don't get elected. Individuals do.

In the United States, individuals don't get elected without the support of a party. When was the last time that even three U.S. senators were not (R) or (D)?

Re:Duverger's law

[evilviper]

Try continuing to read on to the next sentence, then get back to me.

Re:Duverger's law

[Surt]

I'd say it would happen something along the lines of the tea party movement. Get liked by one side of the MSM more than the existing party representing that media. In this case, FOX, tired of the Republicans hewing too close to the center, decided to throw in their lot with the tea party.

Re:Duverger's law

[shutdown -p now]

So it's a win-win, then.

Re:Duverger's law

[shutdown -p now]

Duverger's law is that a plurality election system will converge to two parties.

Since we're talking about Australia here - they have preferential voting, so this doesn't apply.

Re:Duverger's law

[rtb61]

Well that has to be the silliest statement, The Tea Party was a fabrication of News Corp via Fox News. It was nothing more that a short term publicity show to create an illusion of a grass roots movement that was intended to be folded back into the lobbyist controlled Republican party. It was a Rupert Murdoch response to the power of the internet to alter the political status quo and to drive actual real publicly motivated policies.

The Tea Party is a mass media sham, well at least that was the intention, oh my. Fox News of course lost control of the Tea Party as in fractured into three groups. Group 1 was of course the News Corp lobbyists grass roots sham, same old same old, of less government for the poor and more government for the rich and, deregulation to grease corruption powered by mass media. Group 2 were actual conservatives who wanted to reform the Republican party more than they want to win the next election ie. no point winning with corrupt corporate losers. Group 3, radical and all over the place, from racists to angry tax cheats to religious fundamentalists. Now of course News Corp is trying to reign in the Tea Party but driving out the non lobbyists controlled elements, which eliminates the bulk of the real grass root elements, rendering the Tea Party largely to insignificance, except in a few hold out areas that a fending off Fox News control.

Government funded research is often far more cost efficient for the public, in fact no comparison a the patent inflated prices of corporate research. Never forget, from a public perspective lower costs for the public are of far more benefit than inflated corporate profits for the minority.

Re:Duverger's law

[camperdave]

Duverger's law is not a law. It is a tendency. There are plenty of countries where plurality elections exist that have had multiple parties for several decades, some for close to a century. Besides, it only examines one aspect: elections. There's a lot more to a political system than just the elections. For example, in Canada, the Prime Minister and the leading party can be removed from office in a motion of non-confidence if the majority of the Members of Parliament vote against them. Not so in the US (at least, I've never heard of it happening). Another effect is party leadership. What would have happened if Hillary Clinton decided to form her own party? She was a very strong candidate, as strong as Obama was. She could have taken as much as half the Democratic party with her. Gerrymandering is another factor that can aid or hinder the stability of multiple parties. Yet another factor is party allegiance. Some people will vote for a party regardless of whether it has a chance to rule or not.

Re:Duverger's law

[Gonoff]

We have managed to do it in the UK.
Next, we can look forward to proportional representation that should keep it this way.

This is where the money is going

[reason]

The Science and Industry Endowment Fund: http://www.sief.org.au/

"The Fund will make strategic investments in scientific research that addresses issues of national priority for Australia."

Get your fucking head out of your ass.

[casings]

Do you realize how much money research and development costs? Do you realize that the only way it makes sense to pursue research and development is if it can support you financially? Do you realize why patents are a _good_ thing (not software patents). No? Well then you, sir, are a fucking moron. This is the real world not some hippie commune. Grow the fuck up. If you can't realize why CSIRO getting money it deserves is a good thing, then fuck you. If you can't realize why NASA getting royalties for THEIR research as well, then fuck you.

God I fucking hate dumb people.

And no, I'm not conservative.

Re:Get your fucking head out of your ass.

[king neckbeard]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I only meant to apply this to government funded research organizations. When you put the government funded part into it, the need for funding it through royalties is arguably negated.

Re:Get your fucking head out of your ass.

[Khyber]

"Do you realize how much money research and development costs?"

If you actually know what the fuck you're doing, very little, surprisingly.

Just speaking as a researcher and product developer.

Re:Get your fucking head out of your ass.

[Rogerborg]

I'll type this very slowly to make it easier for you to understand: taxing consumers a second time on research that was already funded from the public purse does not promote the progress of science and the useful arts.

Re:Get your fucking head out of your ass.

[victorhooi]

heya,

Err, I think it really depends on what exactly you're developing...

Software development, well, apart from the SDK, tools etc, and your wages, it usually doesn't take that much (unless you're developing for some weird exotic hardware).

However, having worked (as a student) in say, optics labs, I can tell you that stuff costs a metric tonne. Even a stupid light meter costs thousands. You add in all the exotic equipment you need for a fully-fledge lab, and you have a lot of money sitting there.

And from what I hear from my PHD friends, medical labs are even worse, and once you start involving people, the costs sky-rocket.

So yes, R&D can cost a lot.

Here, the CSIRO was developing wireless equipment, with what I assume was real hardware. So they probably had people churning out their own custom hardware and equipment for this. And probably a lot of expensive engineering simulation software - the sort where they give you a stupid hardware dongle, and ask for your first two children and a sacrifice to Baal. So yes, they can cost a lot.

Also, to the stupid idiot above, the CSIRO is around 50% funded by the government, but in it's mandate it's meant to get the remainder from commercialisation, e.g. from patents. You sir, are a twit.

And to the GP - kudos to you sir...haha...hippy commune...*laughs*....good call....

Cheers,
Victor

Stargate

[tepples]

stargate

Star meaning celebrity and gate meaning scandal? Just turn the TV to HLN or E! and see Stargate happen everyday.

Compare to GPL violation

[tepples]

if CSIRO's law suits are justified because their business partners broke signed deals (as the original reply claims), why don't they sue for breach of contract instead of software patent infringement?

For the same reason that a GPL violation is prosecuted as a copyright infringement.

Re:Compare to GPL violation

[ciaran_o_riordan]

There's no comparison. The GPL is a copyright licence. It makes sense to go to court for copyright violation if someone breaches the GPL.

The situation here is that CSIRO signed contracts with tech companies (according to slashdot comments), and these contracts got broken, but now instead of going to court for breach of contract, CSIRO is going to court for patent infringement.

pr0nz

[tepples]

Too right that mate, and we don't bloody call 'em shrimp - they're fucking PRAWNS

PRAWNS sounds more like pictures of naked women.

I wonder if east texas district courts know...

[mykos]

That they're the laughingstock of the American justice system, and that people on both sides of patent litigation see them as milking cows for patent squatters.

being smart

[zogger]

Being smart is taking your innovation and actually doing something with it, in this case, manufacturing. This is called "value added" in economics. Ya, they might get a quarter to a full billion from a settlement, but the people who *use* that tech and build with it make umpteen billions, over and over again.

That's smart(er).

Mideast oil producing nations sell their raw resources..then did nothing with it beyond splurging and blowing it mostly. They failed to develop any heavy industry of note, or any sort of trans-oil-selling sustainable economy despite generations of serious cashflow in...they failed the next step and didn't use that surplus windfall in any "value added" manner.

I can sell my spiffy new invented hammer and saw design one time, or I can use this innovation in the market place directly and build a lot of furniture and houses with my new hammer and saw, beating my competition handily, and make a lot more. This gives me ten times the potential budget to play with for more R&D and then manufacturing gains.

CSIRO does some good research, but in the end after all is said and done, once you follow the economic breadcrumbs around, manufacturing is the big kahuna on making loot, and China still gets it for free or chump change and makes the real serious moolah from that same research (same as they are doing with every other nation's R&D now). Selling raw R&D-failing to use it yourself- is no different at all from selling any other "raw" natural resource, like mideast oil. Ya, you can make some money, sometimes big money, but never the ultimate serious money.

Ideas are cheap on the global scale, implementation of those ideas makes the hugemongous national trade surpluses. CSIRO does implement their ag research domestically, but the other..not sure what they do with it other than try to sell it cheap, and even then they are forced to sue to get a little. And frankly, a billion dollars for wifi? That's chump change on the international scene. Better than nothing, but still just selling off raw resources (oz brains in this case) cheap.

I wouldn't feel bad about it, and don't take it as a dig against Australia (sort of a joke there..) because most nations are doing that now, they have more or less conceded world economic dominance to China for short term profits and some cheap consumer trinkets, a couple generations worth, then..that stuff won't be all that cheap anymore. China will reach a point they can demand more, they won't have to sell cheap, once they have more or less completely squashed manufacturing elsewhere, and also built up their own R&D establishment.

Re:being smart

[Anonymous Coward]

They are manufacturing stuff.

Not directly, they are licensing it to other people, and other people manufacture it.
Same thing, happens everywhere. Apple dont manufacture iPads, but do you question wether they own the right to enforce patents relating to iPads?
Sometimes people steal ideas, and manufacture products based on patents they dont have the rights to.
The CSIRO invented some core component of WiFi, and have sued some players for not respecting their patent. They have presumably signed licensing agreements with those people. Now they are suing more people for breach of their patent.

Pretty simple and straightforward case.

And its a relatively small investment in brains (maybe a million dollars, maybe 3 million dollars?) for a billion dollar payment.
I like those numbers.
Show me a manufacturing company investment that gives you a 33,000% to 100,000% return over 20 years. (300 to 1000 times the return on initial investment)

manufacturing DOES NOT give you those kinds of returns. Do some maths and get back to us.

Re:being smart

[Anonymous Coward]

They actually spun off a commercial company to manufacture their patented technologies - Radiata, which got bought by Cisco.

Re:being smart

[harlequinn]

"Ideas are cheap on the global scale"

Yes, apparently you can just take them without paying for them. That's particularly good value.

Re:being smart

[orient]

It's obvious that you do not understand the difference between and a scientist and an engineer. The scientist thinks, creates way of solving problems and sells it to the engineer. The engineer takes the scientist's creation and assembles it in machines and sells the machines to the labourer. The labourer actually makes something tangible out of scientist's and engineer's ideas. What you're trying to say, wrongly IMHO, is that the engineer is smarter than the scientist. This is not true and not relevant either.

Its freely available to Australians

[Anonymous Coward]

the rest have to pay .... ok, I have no idea if its freely available to Australians, but I'm ont Australian, and its not my government, so guess what, I don't get to decide

Re:Its freely available to Australians

[king neckbeard]

I'm not arguing legality. I'm arguing ethics.

Broken system

[schlick]

This is a suit over a software patent. This is what makes CSIRO a troll. Do any of these companies MAKE the hardware their selling? This sounds like a cash grab to me. We need to fix the system and get rid of software patents altogether.

Re:Broken system

[pipedwho]

No, the implementations of these WIFI patents still need to be done in hardware. It will be a while before general purpose processors are fast enough to run equivalently functional software to do the job in real time.

However, the problem isn't hardware patents being good and software patents being bad. It's that the patent system is too broken to cater for either.

Hardware is simply the embodiment of a functional device that is performing a described functionality. Software is simply a reduction of (potentially the same) functionality into a descriptive language that can be implemented 'on the fly'.

In the end, any invention, whether it be a manufacturing process, physical implementation, or software code, needs to be evaluated on both its usefulness and ingenuity.

Anything that ends up in a public inter-communications standard needs to be considered with that in mind and re-evaluated with more stringent criteria, reduced term lengths, and proportionally non-discriminatory licensing terms. This should be part of the legal framework of the patent system, and not left to the whim of various colluding standards organisations or corporations.

Patent and copyright durations need to be evaluated in terms of the usefulness of the idea to the public trust. If an idea becomes useless (or close to useless) before it expires to the public trust, then the term should be deemed excessive and reduced. That means that software should be patentable, but at a reduced term length.

Also, the amount of required inventiveness (ie. non-obviousness) needs to be relative to the protection afforded and the number of potential 'inventors' operating in the given fields of expertise. The problem with the current system is that very small inventive steps are protected for 20 years. In many cases this locks out all competition by making it far too risky to even try to work around the patent (which in some cases is not possible due to vagueness/broadness of the pre-existing patent). For software developers this can quickly become a disaster when there are millions of players participating in their domain, and the cost of litigation prohibitive.

Am I next?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder since I have a retail company if I and others will be sued next since I sell WiFi devices. It may sound silly, but if they didn't manufacture anything and can successfully get sued then it could happen.

Who could CSIRO give the money to?

[Chuck Chunder]

The government? I think a lot of Australians would think that would be a good way of guarunteeing that Australian citizens don't get a return on the money!

Personally I think they should keep it as it helps maintain their independance from government.

I'm an Australian

[Namarrgon]

You forgot C) reap the benefits of the original wifi research that CSIRO did, and all the future research too, and D) when CSIRO collects, we can put our taxpayer dollars to better use than funding the CEO salaries and shareholder dividends of international companies that just want to rip us off.

I wouldn't mind if CSIRO made it royalty-free for Australian companies, since their taxes helped fund it, but I'm quite comfortable with CSIRO collecting a billion or so from overseas companies that didn't contribute, even if it means slightly higher costs for me. Still a total net gain for Australians.

Suing the wrong party

[Bruha]

Verizon AT&T and other carriers do not build their phones, they sell other's phones. If they have a beef with a wifi patent they need to go after the device makers ALA Apple, Nokia, Motorola, Google.

All this will serve to do is raise our already high wireless bills to pay off these lawsuits.

Did these guys participate in the wifi standards body? Did they push their patented tech if they were part of the spec, and then backstabbed these companies who thought the standard was licensed correctly? I think people deserve to know.

If they pushed their tech and now sue, they are by definition a Patent Troll just as much any company who buys patents with the sole intent of suing for money.

Re:Suing the wrong party

[phoenixdigital]

What these guys did was solve a problem that many companies were trying to solve throughout the world for some time with regards to wireless data transmission.
They found the solution told everyone about it and then had their technology replicated everywhere.

Watch the video link in my post just after this if you want to hear the facts about why they wanted compensation for solving an issue noone else could.

Here it is if you can't find my post: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2708730.htm (apologies for posting it twice)

Video Story on the CSIRO lawsuit in Texas

[phoenixdigital]

To anyone that really doesn't know how/why this all came about watch this 12minute news story on the case, its history and the players involved.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2708730.htm

Re:Video Story on the CSIRO lawsuit in Texas

[king neckbeard]

That's not a particularly objective video. It looks like they didn't even try to show the other side.

Re:Video Story on the CSIRO lawsuit in Texas

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no other side. People ripped the CSIRO off. The wouldn't pay. They got made to pay. End of story.

They spent decades in research leading up to this technology. Proper technology. Technology with applications in almost every field. Not a "one click shopping" patent. Technology which has revolutionized the way people use computing devices. Technology EVERYONE ripped off without paying.

Objective my ass. This is one of the few patent cases where it is clear cut. It's a specific patent, covering a specific technology implemented by the inventing party. They gave many many many chance for all parties to pay up, including public memorandums to the IEEE.

Re:Video Story on the CSIRO lawsuit in Texas

[king neckbeard]

There is another side. The side of the companies being sued. Furthermore, they act as if CSIRO did basically everything that goes into wifi. That's about as close as saying Bell Labs invented Windows 7 because they wrote C. CSIRO made part of the the technology that goes into wifi, and it seems some of the patent's claims are for signals of 10 GHz and above, which isn't used by 802.11, Intel is calling the patent into question, and that Buffalo won their appeal, but eventually settled. Don't say revolutionized loosely, you don't look good in black turtlenecks.

Ozzy govt report says swpats hamper innovation

[ciaran_o_riordan]

you are accusing the Australian Government of being unable to produce anything of value

I said nothing of the sort. The replies I'm getting in this thread are surreal.

Your end paragraph suggests a dream, wherein each contributor to progress owns their contribution, and the value gets shared fairly among them. That's the promise of the patent lawyers, but it's not the reality. The reality is that a small number of patent holders jam up the system, demanding taxes, demanding licences which aren't compatible with free software, wasting everyone's time with legal messes... The country of origin of these aggressors isn't was makes them a nuisance.

Guess who agrees with this? The Australian government's Venturous Australia report! Now there's some useful public research that's publicly usable:

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Venturous_Australia

In this regard, particularly in new areas of patenting such as software and business methods, there is strong evidence that existing intellectual property arrangements are hampering innovation.

No Patents at All

[Nom du Keyboard]

Just another good case of why standards should never include patented technology unless the patent(s) are signed over to royalty-free public use. I'll settle for cheap and good enough, rather than better, but patented.

Re:No Patents at All

[dropbearsrus]

I concur.

Now, let's talk about HTML5 and encumbered video codecs....

Patents 101

[Capsaicin]

Do you think Microsoft should have a 20 year monopoly on each file format they invent?

Whether or not it is 20 years, or some shorter period, is a matter of debate. But yes, I believe people should be rewarded for the work they do and I believe that technological progress can have some positive benefits and ought to be encouraged.

If a file format is an 'invention' for the purposes of patent law (which falls not to me to "believe," but is a matter of the courts and the legislature); if a particular file format possesses the requisite originality; and if the details of the file format are published with sufficient specificity to allow anyone to reverse engineer it --then why should the person developing it, Microsoft or any other person, be granted protection in return?

Do note that this is not an argument for or against software patents in particular! If you don't think software should be patentable, that's something for you to take up with your lawmakers. Personally I'm more concerned with patents on discoveries (eg in the biological sciences) as opposed to invetions proper.

What I believe is that the patent system is basically a good idea, but one, which if we do not guard against it, is capable of being distorted to serve a purpose contrary to its basic aim --which is to promote innovation by counteracting the "Free Rider" market failure.

Or is the "actually develop" justification limited to CSIRO?

Huh? Do you still not understand what a "patent troll" is?

err

[Capsaicin]

s/why should the person/why shouldn't the person/

Uhm, no

[AmigaBen]

That's not the top 3, that's 1, 2 and 4.

Slashdot Hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

CSIRO actually made (substantially) the damn tech and they patented and now want to get paid paid? If MPEG is allowed to exist defensive why on earth can't the CSIRO, and they are a research organisation for crying out loud not a money grabbing corp.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they win in the end it is all just extra bucks in CSIRO's coffers so they do not have to rely on Australian tax payers for their expenses.

As an Australian tax payer I say go for it.

KDawson: A Village Somewhere is Missing It's Idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

The "ignorant posting" realm has a new King, and it's kdawson. How much more ignorance could he/she/it cram into a single posting?

A little fact: in the 50's, 60's and most of the 70's, CSIRO ran under rules which prevented commercial exploitation of their research. In 1963 Doug Waterhouse developed - with government money - a substance which repelled flies and mosquitos. When the work was published, the manufacturers wrote him a letter, and he replied in a letter detailing exactly how to manufacture the development. This was marketed as Aerogard, becoming one of Australia's tier-1 brands.

Manufacturer benefit: millions of dollars over decade
Manufacturer R&D investment: zero
CSIRO benefit: marginal (PR)
CSIRO R&D investment: 100% of R&D costs

See a problem with that? I do, so I thoroughly approve of the CSIRO's actions here. I don't like their choice of venue, but they are trying to maximize their possibility of return. Just as any other org would do, and the problem lies not with that choice, but with the actions of that venue.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if the reaction to this would have been any different if it were say, NASA, or an American research dept. were to have brought this to the courts?

Re:That's one huge shrimp on the barbie

[dropbearsrus]

Not sure if this was a troll or not... but here you go anyway:

King prawn info from Sydney Fish Market

This is what is being cooked when Hoges says he will 'slip another shrimp on the barbie'

Australian tourism ad from 1984

The IEEE 802.11 standard

[neghvar1]

Wi-Fi is IEEE 802.11 a recognized standard. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE-SA) has a 7 step process to make a technology a standard. Part of it involves getting sponsorship from companies involved in the technologies that make up the proposed standard. Next is authorization from the standards committee and the companies involved. What this means is that either IEEE-SA began the standardization project without CSIRO's authorization or CSIRO is lying or has changed their mind and is attempting to reclaim lost profits.

Re:The IEEE 802.11 standard

[Viridae]

CSIRO offered to licence the technology, the companies involved agreed, then didn't pay, then sued to overturn the patent, then lost and in turn got sued for royalties.

Science in Australia

[HuguesT]

I think this lawsuit is not good for CSIRO's reputation. I understand the temptation to earn lots of millions, but in the end this will not serve them.

First let us put things into perspective. CSIRO has not come up with intellectual property worth $1B very often. Lots of more or less useful things, but the wifi patent is basically unique. The Aussie govt pays the 6000 employees salaries every year, at a cost of about $1B *every year*.

Yet there are companies like IBM who license their IP worldwide for many billions every year. So color me unimpressed. If this patent is the best CSIRO scientists can do, this sucks. Many companies can do a lot more every year.

CSIRO does nothing of what is commonly referred to as "Big Science", like at the CERN, Tevatron, ITER, etc. Those cost many billions to *build*, even more to run. They have a small number of mid-size instruments like a 3.6m telescope and a few smaller ones. Some of those were burned in a bushfire a few years back near Canberra, and last I heard they are not going to replace them. They simply have no unique large equipment where people from all over the world flock to do their experiment. They used to have an almost monopoly on Southern skies astronomy, but not Chile (!) has much much better equipment. Due to irrational public fears against "radiations" readily conveyed by the media, Australia has a single tiny research reactor at a "safe" distance from Sydney, and opened their only reasonably sized synchrotron in 2007 in Melbourne !

CSIRO does very little of what is commonly referred to as "basic science". They have no proper math or physics department for instance. They do a lot of development work for industry. In Australia, basic science is done in the Universities.

Science can cost a lot of money. In general it is worth it, in the mid to long run, but if you spend only little, you are dependent on others for big results. The entire computer industry would not have existed without the basic physics research of the early 20th century. Think about that !

So by some definition, CSIRO is now a patent troll, I'm not surprised. When I left a few years ago, the place was run by lawyers, business development people and MBA-style managers. This lawsuit is not good news for the scientists at CSIRO, it will be further "proof" that CSIRO requires less appropriation and must do even more consulting. In Australia, science is seen as a cost center. This is madness, a country as rich as Australia is at the moment cannot hope to survive long selling coal, grain and providing banking and insurance to its own population. It should be using its current, short-lived wealth to become a beacon to the world.

Note; I was a CSIRO employee for 10 years, in the maths and statistics department, and I eventually found that both their funding and basic research policies royally sucked. This is even worse at Universities (I taught at U. of Sydney too). The best Australian scientists and researchers still emigrate to England or the USA, for instance the recent Fields medalist Terence Tao, probably one of the best all-around mathematicians since Poincare and Hilbert. What a waste !

Re:Science in Australia

[countach]

CSIRO sell one patent and they are a troll. But IBM sell a lot more patents are they are not trolls? Go figure. And since CSIRO are not primarily in the business of making patents and making money, why should we care if you are impressed by CSIRO's patents or not?

IBM has 400,000 employees and CSIRO has 6000. And IBM makes more money. Who would have thunk? CERN has a budget of $10 billion dollars, and CSIRO has a lot more bases to cover, and a tenth of the budget, and they couldn't afford to build CERN. Who would have thunk?

Did this rant actually have a point?

T-Mobile is the #3 US carrier now?

[Anonymous Coward]

They must have gained a lot of customers in the last few months, and significantly increased their coverage...

Yes, RAND

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, RAND. Unfortunately for FOSS, RAND doesn't mean "free".

Tea Party has been silent about copyright

[tepples]

Get liked by one side of the MSM more than the existing party representing that media.

Fox News liked the Tea Party movement because it hasn't articulated any views on copyright. A Pirate Party, on the other hand, would get liked by neither side of the mainstream media because it would threaten the revenue stream from the back catalog of the movie studio that shares a parent company with the news outlet.

Take Ron Paul

[tepples]

And you'll find plenty of politicians from both parties that disagree with their party on plenty of issues...

Yeah, like Ron Paul. The mainstream U.S. news media buried his campaign, not letting him get a word in edgewise at the Republican primary debates.

Re:Take Ron Paul

[evilviper]

Yeah, like Ron Paul. The mainstream U.S. news media buried his campaign

Yes it was, and it's immensely ironic. He wants more corporate freedom, and corporations choose to use their current limited freedoms to undermine him. He (and his supporters) have no right to complain. That would be blatant hypocrisy.

Also, presidential politics is very different than any other political contests. Focus on the Presidency, at the expense of all else, is a great disservice.

Re:That's one huge shrimp on the barbie

[al0ha]

Man all you Auzzies are so full of crap it is hilarious. Let's start with:

http://www.auzziefamilies.com/
http://www.rawauzzie.com/

And there are thousands of other examples...
And yeah, maybe only Paul Hogan referred to prawns as shrimp, but that's how we do it in the greatest nation on earth.

Ay mate, have another tube o' Fosters - my original comment was funny.

Who complained about their services?

[abbynormal brain]

Not me. They can still make money from that. I said consumers should be protected from their mistakes. They keep funds available for legal shielding - I'm merely suggesting an industry practice similar to that for "mistakes" we should not have to help them absorb.

Should be thrown out as the wrong court

[random coward]

Since CSIRO is an Australian entity and is foriegn to the USA. The proper jurisdiction for the suit is the DC circuit. They should have this thrown out and be sanctioned for shopping the jurisdiction.

Well said, sir.

[Benfea]

There have been so many abuses of the patent law in recent years and so many stories on patent abuses here at /. that many people just automatically get their knickers in a twist at the mere mention of the word "patent". I have to admit that this was my own initial reaction until I started reading the posts like yours in this discussion.

I have to disagree

[Benfea]

If the purpose of said government institution is to promote and fund research, then this is exactly the sort of thing that should be done with the research they've done. This money will go towards other research, which could end up producing another similarly useful patent that benefits us all.

Obviously an American

[DABANSHEE]

Why do Americans have such a problem with govt depts & statutory authorities using their comparative advantage to successfully compete on the open market & make money?

Every dollar a Australian govt dept or statutory authority makes is one less dollar required from us Aussie taxpayers, which is a good thing for us.

companies charge whatever the market can bear

[DABANSHEE]

If they can get a away with hiking the prices on their products they will anyway, regardless of whether there's a royalty to the CSIRO to pay or not.