CSIRO Wireless Patent Reaffirmed In US Court

An anonymous reader writes ""The CSIRO has won a landmark US legal battle against Buffalo Technology, under which it could receive royalties from every producer of wireless local area network (WLAN) products worldwide." From the article: "The patent, granted to CSIRO in 1996, encompasses elements of the 802.11a/g wireless technology that is now an industry standard. It stems from a system developed by CSIRO in the early '90s, 'to exchange large amounts of information wirelessly at high speed, within environments such as offices and homes,' said a CSIRO spokeswoman."

CSIRO Patents are a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I really think that having the CSIRO earning money for every WLAN access point is a reason why the patent system is a Good Thing (tm). Not greedy corporations making money, just an honest government research institute getting credit for their work.

Just look at their research on the new Air Guitar for example

CSIRO Rocks!

[jdigital]

Don't knock the CSIRO. At one of their 'Double Helix' club meetings I learned how to program my calculator to generate a Mandelbrot set. Might not be so much of a feat to you TI fanboys, but this was on an HP-42S (which I still own & use) - a non-graphing calculator.

Later I was placed in a summer program where I learned matlab whilst working at a steel testing lab.

Cool stuffs.

bad for CSIRO?

[grapeape]

In the long run isnt this going to prove bad for CSIRO? In the future as other "standards" are adopted will anyone want the CSIRO involved and will any of their achievements be looked at as something to include rather than something to avoid? While I understand their reasoning I really think this was very shortsighted and could easily push the CSIRO into the relm of being virtually ignored by much of that standards community. I sat in on IEEE meetings for the 802.11g standard and saw shocked to learn the truth about how "standards" work and how many companies try quietly to slip in their own usually proprietary idea's to they and gain leverage after the standard is adopted. I guess it's no different than politicians tacking unrelated affinity pork to bills and resolutions, maybe I just dont understand all the facts but it seems sad that organizations who's own bylaws state their purpose is the national and/or common good appear to pander to the same tactics as the corporate world.

I do have one question though, where was CSIRO when the standards for 802.11a/b/g were being created? And why didnt they speak up?

10 years too long

[nrlightfoot]

Considering the rate of innovation these days, a 20 year patent period is far too long. A good first step for patent reform would be to reduce the length of patents by half or more.

Reciprocity?

[bdwoolman]

...as a foreign government body meant it was immune from lawsuits

IANAL but I thought that if you are immune to suits you also cannot bring them. I know from experience that if you have diplomatic immunity you cannot be sued in a country of your accredited residence (nice), but you also cannot bring suit there. Also did I read correctly that this suit started when MS Intel et al brought suit to have the patent invalidated and that the Australians simply counter sued and then won. Talk about putting a foot in it! The article left much unsaid. The whole thing seems odd for a govt lab to get into. Why such a long time to protect their rights?

Interested to see how this shakes out. That district in East Texas is, I believe, famous for civil suits against companies; that is, if it is the one I am thinking of...

Does anyone have a link with more depth on this? It is a great business story and more to it than meets the eye.

Re:Patent and standards

[mr_tenor]

A technology will have a very hard time being standardized if someone holds the patent.

I don't think you have much insight into the process of making standards nowadays. Do you think the companies involved are charities?

Re:If the CSIRO had any balls..

[Petra_von_Kant]

As an ex-CSIRO scientist from the early 1990's who personally developed several diagnostic assays for chlamydia trachomatis (look it up) which were commissioned by a certain large Swedish pharmaceutical company, I can confidently say, that the work done wasn't solely for the benefit of Australian companies.

For some years, the CSIRO has had a policy of being a hired gun, so to speak, for anyone prepared to hand over the readies, and further, applies pressure to the various divisions, to be self-funding to a certain degree (in my particular group, it was 30% but that was 12 years ago now).

The current Australian goverment, is, unfortunately, a conservative one, and is only too happy to put pressure on the CSIRO and other research institutes to get their funding from elsewhere, rather than from the public purse (well, gives them more money to piss up against the wall for defence et cetera).

10 years, however, is about par for the course with anything at the CSIRO, as it is now top heavy with administrators whose sole aim in life is to ensure that their arses are protected. The truly great and good scientists from there have all buggered orf or taken their generous redundany pay and retired. Me? I was headhunted over 10 years ago and I don't really miss it the way it is now.

Rather I yearn for the days before some idiot decided that bean counters or people with an MBA should be in charge, where you didn't have to attend 5 meetings a day or spend time worrying about your ever shrinking contract and were allowed to get on with the genuine science.

OK, spleen vented ..........