Australian government patent troll collects from Wi-Fi vendors
Summary: Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization picked up $229-million from technology companies for "violating" its Wi-Fi patent.
Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) has picked up $229-million from technology companies for their Wi-Fi patent. This time around, CSIRO hit up Lenovo, Acer, Sony, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. These companies settled with CSIRO rather than face off in the infamously pro-patent Eastern District Court of Texas, United States.
This isn't the first time CSIRO has cashed in big with its overly-broad patent. The research arm of the Australian government hit up 14 companies in 2009, including HP, Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Netgear, Toshiba, 3Com, Nintendo, D-Link, and Buffalo Technologies, for over $200-million.
The CSIRO's patent name alone, Wireless LAN , gives you an idea of just how broad it is. The patent, which was approved in January 1996 doesn't expire until November 2013.
Specifically CSIRO claims that its patent covers a core method for transmitting wireless signals via orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation. This breaks signals into different parts to transmit data simultaneously over different frequencies to maximize performance. It is used in the major IEEE Wi-Fi standards including 802.11a, 802.11g and 802.11n.
Some people see CSIRO being one of “the good guys” patent lawsuits and all. Leaving aside the software patent issue, most of them don't know that CSIRO has refused to sign a Letter of Acceptance (LoA) that would free companies from patent attacks for using the IEEE Wi-Fi standards. This was one of the direct causes for the long delays in making 802.11n a standard.
An IEEE LoA (PDF Link) is an essential part of creating a standard. Without all the needed LoAs anyone who uses a standard may be targetted, as in this case, to lawsuits (PDF Link). This, in turn, makes the standard less attractive to vendors and customers.
So, while I'm sure CSIRO does good work, never forget that they're paying for some of that work by being a patent troll and at the expense of everyone who relies on technology standards.
Related Stories:
ZDNet Australia: CSIRO nets $220m in Wi-Fi settlement
ZDNet Australia: Don't squander Wi-Fi winnings: CSIRO staff
CNET: Wi-Fi standards face patent threat
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
Steven, the anti everything blogger
Well if we listen to your stupidity, patents would be worthless, no one would invest huge sums in new technologies, and basically you'd kill the industry.
Nice to be a blogger paid to be stupid, but if you understood business, risk, capital and the rest you might change your tune.
Then again, there are those who would print anything to feed the followers. You fit that category.
Why ZD doesn't can you like CW did is beyond me.
Does NASA and every other USA government department . . .
CSIRO does remarkable work. They are anything but a patent troll.
Actually, I believe NASA can't hold patents
However - and this is a BIG however.
Any contractor that develops a technology in response to a NASA contract may hold the patents and profit from them.
Subtle difference, but a difference none the less.
Sorry to tell you ... but the answer is YES.
So the technical answer is YES. NASA and US government agencies give away technology created with tax payer money.
they are indeed patent trolls
Maybe you should...
give me a break...
can someone explain to me how this douche is still employed by zdnet??
why don't you come on down to OZ and check out what a real research institute does, instead of mouthing off...
why shouldn't the csiro fight for what they created, and rightfully patented. what part of the patent did you not understand?
you're right there
What part...
"Overly broad" is his opinion
Unprofessional journalism
check your spelling, douche...
not once, not twice, but THREE times, this knob has spelled it wrong.
why don't you talk to zdnet and tell them that i am available to write some decent articles, for much less than you're making.
disgraceful.
Acronym error fixed
A question for Mr. Grober:
If I were a conspiracy theorist I'd say you were protecting him, but I'll just blame it on bad software. I just spent 10 minutes writing a response like this one, and it magically disappeared never to be seen again.
So, back to the real question, why do you allow Steven to soil the pages of ZD Net with such insults as calling legitimate patent holders, "Trolls" for enforcing their rights and demanding payment they are legally entitled to?
This goes with Steven's other current article about the demise of OS/2, blaming Microsoft for IBM's stupidity in that era.
His blogging style (can't call him a journalist as it would be an insult to the profession) relies on half truths and out and out lies to bring the reader to a false conclusion that profit making is evil.
His pattern is well known, write a rather bland blog, then over a couple more installments hit something completely incendiary like this one. The OS/2 article is littered with half truths, selective memories and lies designed to malign Microsoft and make IBM, the Open Source company, look better then that era of history allows.
So, why do you allow Steven to soil your pages with half truths and lies? Through Steven I've learned to double check every article on ZD for accuracy. If you allow one massively inaccurate writer (liar) in your stable of writers it taints the rest. All of your writers suffer as does ZD's reputation.
What say ye? Why do you keep such a writer that damages your reputation?
the insult you mention
are you going to fix that?
(also, as editor, i assume you were the one who should have checked this article??)
Patent Troll my butt!
Damn right it does. Using Australian Tax payers dollars for the benefit Australia and the rest of the world.
Before you start throwing around phrases like Patent Troll, you should really look at what the CSIRO has accomplished over 80 odd years.
http://csiropedia.csiro.au/display/CSIROpedia/Achievements+A-Z
Flagrant disregard for humankind
Stop and think about working for free, because someone like Stevie says so.
Communist. FOSS. blinders. I'm sick and tired of the reverse greed of the FOSS henchmen. It's time to be blunt.
Don't blame the CSIRO. Blame the government.
However, this was conceived back in 1995. It was ahead of its time. Nobody was thinking about Wi-Fi back then, let alone the concept of the signal bouncing between frequencies.
I suspect many patents are general
wrong