Australian WiFi Inventors Win US Legal Battle 193
First time accepted submitter Kangburra writes "Australian government science body CSIRO said Sunday it had won a multi-million-dollar legal settlement in the United States to license its patented technology that underpins the WiFi platform worldwide. Scientists from the agency invented the wireless local area network (WLAN) technology that is the basis of the WiFi signal employed by computers, smartphones and other Internet-ready devices around the world."
Break Out The Australian Sparkling White Wine (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a major cause for celebration.
Remember folks, this is a RESEARCH ORGANIZATION, these funds will be mostly plowed back into further research.
Also it makes for a good case-in-point, it doesn't matter WHO did the work or WHERE their funding comes from, a valid patent is a valid patent.
Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
The CSIRO isn't your typical patent troll. They do serious R&D on all sorts of things: environment, solar, agriculture, minerals, you name it. They're very well respected in Australia for the research they do.
The money from this win will go towards funding more research. These are the good guys; if they have a patent for something, it will be more than your typical "XOR for a visible cursor that doesn't interfere with the display" job.
Re:Break Out The Australian Sparkling White Wine (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Break Out The Australian Sparkling White Wine (Score:1, Insightful)
I think you miss the point. Those lawyers cost money and any law firm will charge a non-trivial amount of the settlement as their payment for legal services rendered.
Re:Somebody shake that mans hand (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look at the list of companies that were sued (and have settled), you will notice that none of them is an Australian company. It was Australian tax payer dollars that funded this research (and the patenting process), so just how does the Australian government tax all those non-Australain companies??? The ONLY way to do it is with patents so that the companies making money from the technology in many countries around the world pay a part of their profits back to the inventors.
As has been said, the CSIRO will use this money to fund further research - such as the "pure" radio astronomy work which resulted in this spin off piece of technology in the first place!
RobHart
Re:Somebody shake that mans hand (Score:4, Insightful)
So us Australians should put all our [taxpayers] research that we funded into the public domain for other countries to use for free?
How about copyrights? if the US designs the next advanced fighter, should get the designs, blueprints and source code go into the public domain?
Re:Break Out The Australian Sparkling White Wine (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah well thats the fault of the bloody US companies, not the CSIRO.
Some money is better than none for a research organisation.
The Bottom Line (Score:2, Insightful)
The bottom line in all of this is that you're WiFi devices are now a bit more expensive than before. Would be nicer to have worldwide standards that aren't patent encumbered.
Re:Somebody shake that mans hand (Score:4, Insightful)
While the global population is so much larger than the Australian population it is a no-brainer.
Re:Who picks these "standards" anyway? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now CSIRO may be a research organization. But this business model of turning government funding into lawsuits around the world is patent trolling. Sorry if you don't like it, but that's the way it is.
OK, so let's turn the question around. You're in charge of the CSIRO, an Australian government-funded research and development arm. What would you have done differently?
The central problem here is that the term "patent troll" doesn't have a universally agreed-upon definition.
Wikipedia lists these qualities that a patent troll generally has:
Purchases a patent, often from a bankrupt firm, and then sues another company by claiming that one of its products infringes on the purchased patent;
Enforces patents against purported infringers without itself intending to manufacture the patented product or supply the patented service;
Enforces patents but has no manufacturing or research base;
Focuses its efforts solely on enforcing patent rights; or
Asserts patent infringement claims against non-copiers or against a large industry that is composed of non-copiers.
Of these, the CSIRO can be legitimately accused of at most one, and even that one isn't clear.
Doing original research isn't sufficient to escape being considered a patent troll.
Not every non-practicing entity who sues over patent infringement is automatically a patent troll, either.
Way to promote cultural stereotypes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who picks these "standards" anyway? (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the biggest patent trolls in the world is acknowledged to be Intellectual Ventures. And they do original research of their own too.
Agreed.
Doing original research isn't sufficient to escape being considered a patent troll.
Also true.
As far as income, IV gets a lot from the companies that have bought a stake in their operations. They aren't solely funded by patent income either.
Also true.
Now CSIRO may be a research organization. But this business model of turning government funding into lawsuits around the world is patent trolling. Sorry if you don't like it, but that's the way it is.
Here you go astray. You pointed out many similaries between IV and CSIRO, but failed to note the major differences.
This quote from Wikipedia shows the major difference (emphasis added):
I argue that a company is a patent troll if they are suing others using patents for technology they neither invented nor use. Basically patent trolling is the use of patents purchased from third parties for the sole purpose of suing other companies. Either invention or real use of the patent in question is enough to keep you from being categorized as a patent troll.
Re:Somebody shake that mans hand (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean the lawyers which shouldn't have been necessary in the first place, if the CSIRO was paid royalties on their valid patent?