U.S. Firms Take on Australia's CSIRO Over Patents 426
dingram17 writes "ABC News is reporting that six U.S. computer companies (Apple, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Microsoft and Netgear) are taking legal action to try to break a U.S. patent that the CSIRO holds on wireless networking.
The CSIRO has patents on OFDM technology, as used in 802.11a and 802.11g. It has been alleged that the CSIRO demands $4 per chipset for the use of this technology. It appears that the patent in question is U.S. Patent 5,487,069 'Wireless LAN.' From a quick look, this appears to be a wide ranging patent."
hypocrisy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:hypocrisy (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's great how the system works. Large corporations with large patent portfolios can squeeze money out of, or totally bankrupt, small businesses that can't afford to license patents from the Big Guys. Also, if the Big Guys ever run into a patent they don't like, they can just get together and try to break the patent so that they can use the technology for free!
Re:hypocrisy (Score:2)
What? There the bad guys? What? Oh.
Those companies are so unpatriotic! They're trying to store up IP...
They're actually screwing with the AU government (Score:5, Insightful)
CSIRO is a not-for-profit Australian Government organisation. Do all these companies really want to screw around with what is likely to be their biggest customer in Australia ?
Invalidate the patent by all means if it shouldn't have been granted. However, if it is legitimate, then just pay the licensing fees.
Remember, a patent is a government granted monopoly for a time period to allow the patent holder to both recoup their costs and to make a profit out of inventing the idea that has been patented. If these companies don't like that, then they should have all their patents revoked immediately, or they should sue the US government for incopetence because the US government granted the patent in the first place.
Re:They're actually screwing with the AU governmen (Score:3, Informative)
It isn't going to matter, there is a fair degree of anti-intellecutalism in Australian politics as shown by books and newpaper articles over the last couple of years that actually tried to make the word "elite" an insult.
CSIRO is not respected much at all, and usually gets cut back more with each budget - most Australian innovations have to be sold overseas before anyone local will consider i
Using patents offensively is JUST WRONG (Score:4, Insightful)
If patents have some uses it should be used to prevent wholesale copying of complete designs, which is as impossible to accidentally reinvent as it is to write a novel only to find that someone has already written essentially the same thing. The broad patents are better struck down, and I oppose anyone who wants to use them offensively, whether it is big-company-to-small-company, small-company-to-big-company, or government-entity-to-big-company.
Re:Using patents offensively is JUST WRONG (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Using patents offensively is JUST WRONG (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Using patents offensively is JUST WRONG (Score:3, Insightful)
Poetic justice (Score:5, Insightful)
"...the ideas there such as OFDM and FEC, etc. are actually not all that ingenious." - CSIRO developed and patented the idea a decade ago, hindsight is always 20/20. As you say, anyone with a "deep understanding" could have thought of the idea but the fact remains that nobody did.
"I oppose anyone who wants to use them offensively" - The corporations that are now whinning about paying $4 per chip are the same ones that pushed hard for US IP laws to be adopted under the recently signed free trade agreement. To me, (an Aussie), it is poetic justice when a "non-profit" can screw a cartel of the largest "for-profits" with thier own rules. Before the 1980's corporations used to buy CSIRO patents for a pitance and the Australian public would watch as Agri-corps and Drug-pushing-corps turned govt funded research into a private cash cow. The use of licenses to make "for-profits" pay for basic research is one of CSIRO's greatest innovations.
Some examples of IP idiocy in Australia, patent for the wheel [newscientist.com], Ugg boots. [boingboing.net]
Are you kidding? (Score:3, Informative)
(Multi-pathing is the tendency of a radio wave of a given frequency to reflect or refract such that the different paths arrive at an antenna at slightly different times, interfering with each other. In an office setting, with lots of objects, this is a real problem.)
Several then-current techniques were mentioned, including spre
Re:hypocrisy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hypocrisy (Score:4, Interesting)
What you call hypocritical, I call totally expected behavior.
Re:hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. And both are not mutually exclusive.
Wow.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow.... (Score:2)
You don't really expect them to pay $4 a chipset do you? It's only fair that the big boys try to circumvent the patent system.. er.. "break the patent".
Re:Wow.... (Score:2)
Re:Wow.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wow.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wow.... (Score:5, Informative)
Profits from CSIRO patents are reinvested into research. This in turn lowers the required government funding thus saving Aussie taxpayers quite a bit of money.
By the way, the CSIRO is highly respected by a lot of Australians.
Shitdrummer
Re:Wow.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow.... (Score:3, Interesting)
That wouldn't explain why it's funding is being cut so drastically. The Federal Government has been reducing funding for the CSIRO (not to mention Universities - nowadays, most unis get most of their funding from overseas full-fee paying students, making it harder for ordinary Australian students out of high school to get a uni place - but that's another rant) since it got into power. Meanwhile, we all get tax cuts (but you only get the
Re:Wow.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I feel obligated to point out that if the government didn't get involved at all it would save even more money in taxes
Yeah, but how much research do you think would get done? Remember, it's not just dedicated scientific organizations like CSIRO that get funding, it's also several public universities doing research too. (chances are private unis are also getting public funds, but I'm not actually sure)
Re:Wow.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Too bad the past and current management of CSIRO are ethical people with a history of being outstanding innovaters and inventers of technology.
Interesting how the people suing them usually hide behind a fuzzy dollars scheme of inventing new technologies based on passing marketing dollars to each other and calling that research funds. Like when BillG promised through his foundation $80 million for aids research, but in real life it was $80 over 1000 years or something
Re:Wow.... (Score:2)
Except that it would lose even more taxes again due to decline in taxable income to Australian industry because of the reduction in R&D, especially in the mining and farming sectors. Not to mention the consequent loss of jobs, etcetera.
Re:Wow.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then all the IP would be owned by large multi-national corporations that would take the profits out of Australia and their R&D dollars as well.
How many multi-nationals do you think would give a shit about Australia's unique problems, such as the Cane Toad? http://www.csiro.au/index.asp?type=faq&id=CaneToa
Shitdrummer
Re:Wow.... (Score:4, Insightful)
If by patenting it they can allocate more grant money in "THEIR" own country instead of the country were the patent was registered it will be better for "THEIR PEOPLE".
I guest it all depend of weither you talk about poeple in the global state (in which case this is bad but people in america lose jobs to people in India is good because it raises the average standard of living globaly) or in the regional state (then losing jobs to another country is bad but this is good)
Also how about another scenario, by patenting technology governments can increase the amount of money they can give out from Grants without increasing taxes. This would result in more technology (Grants generally focus on long term research whereas companys generally forcus on ROI - short term) with less of a burden on the general population and would only affect people who used the new technology.
Re:Wow.... (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, the research was paid for by Australian taxpayers. So why should American companies be able to freeload on the technology?
Re:Wow.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow.... (Score:2)
Re:Wow.... (Score:3, Funny)
Quite right, like Al Gore and the Internet.
Re:Wow.... (Score:2)
Side note: 5 years is a bit short to judge a technology as "major"
Re:Wow.... (Score:2)
Re:Wow.... (Score:5, Insightful)
So what was this major thing they invented? (btw, I am sure you meant last century)
Re:Wow.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow.... (Score:3, Funny)
Oh sure, on paper.
But in the real world, the French version shipped 16 years late, was full of bugs, and support had to be outsorced to Corsica.
A dozen platform changes later, the French are running Freedom 5.0 and it still doesn't work properly.
Meanwhile, America gets by on Freedom 1.0.27. Admittedly, the last patch took two hundred years to roll out...
Re:The things Americans did: (Score:3, Informative)
Sending a man to the moon is not an invention my backwards american friend. Plus Star Trek is not real and even they never explored all the planets during any of their episodes unless you count the Voyager episode where Paris does warp 10 and occupies all points in the universe at the same time, even so, that was a fictional invention.
The lightbulb was invented by an Sir Joseph Wilson Swan AND Thomas Eddison at the same time in their respective countries.
Nikola Tesla invented AC power, a Serbian.
European culture (Score:3, Funny)
And the way US citiziens dress was previously based in the European culture. Hell, they whole US culture is based in the European culture - that's from where most of american people comes, remember?
I listen to flamenco and classic music and that is not based in american culture by the way.
Re:Wow.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wow.... (Score:2)
This is why development engineers and researchers generally aren't too fond of wars. Half our brains are in other countries, and anything i
Pfffft (Score:2)
Re:Wow.... (Score:2)
If a government department has used my taxes to invent this, and can make enough to partyky run itself from the income, meaning *more* of my taxes aren't spent keeping the organisation running, I say that's great!
It's when they use all my taxes and get nothing out of it that I get more annoyed!
Re:Wow.... (Score:2)
Re:Wow.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Tech paid for by Australian tax payers shouldn't be free to Australian Corps
or
Tech paid for by US tax payer shouldn't be free to US Corps.
Raises the question how much tech is paid for by donation and gov. funding(i.e. the public) is tied up in private hands?
Re:Wow.... (Score:2)
Go aussie go.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Turnabout is fair play... (Score:5, Insightful)
At any rate, I've given up hope that the patent system will actually be fixed...
Re:Turnabout is fair play... (Score:2)
Re:Turnabout is fair play... (Score:3, Funny)
Who said easy target?
Re:Turnabout is fair play... (Score:2)
Austrailian GDP: $579 billion, all of which cannot be brought to bear on this without destroying the country utterly. In fact only a VERY small portion could be bankrolled for this.
HP Yearly Revenue: $79.9 billion
Dell Yearly Revenue: $49.2 billion
Microsoft Yearly Revenue: $36.8 billion
Intel Yearly Revenue: $34.2 billion
Apple Yearly Revenue: $8.28 billion
Around $208.4 billion with a lot in reserves, no roads to build, no wellfare to payout, no military to support... Austrailia wil
Re:Turnabout is fair play... (Score:2)
Australia should just go and invade those guys or at least bomb them a bit... oh wait...
Re:Turnabout is fair play... (Score:2)
When the Australian government signed the AUSFTA it committed Australians to paying US companies an extra $50 billion over the next ten years in IP fees.
If these multinationals bring any pressure to bear on Australian politicians (ie, "we won't employ you when you leave politics"), they'll be on their backs with their legs in the air quicker than you can say "vested interests".
Re:Turnabout is fair play... (Score:2)
Whats wrong with this picture? (Score:4, Interesting)
The companies listed I am sure all have patents that are just as far reaching or broad,(didn't sony just apply for a patent for a method of transfering information directly to your brain), which I am sure could be contested in the same way.
I guess the only difference is that Joe Nobody doesn't have the cash or the political/economic connections that these companies have.
if they win, what will the precidence be for the rest of us as to the legality or coverage of US patents? Could this be the loophole many have been looking for to get all those wide reaching, stupid patents we all hate and read about, dismissed?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Intellectual property (Score:4, Insightful)
How hypocritical are Microsoft appearing?
On one hand they're trying to teach kids flawed views on intellectual property to ensure that future generations won't pirate as much, and on the other hand they're doing exactly what they're trying to prevent, the theft of intellectual property.
Such sad, sad, little people.
Nothing new here... (Score:2)
Looks like more IP / Copyright litigation to me. WLAN has too many standards, too many cooks, too many IP holders to ever really get anywhere without a fight.
I'm interested to see how this works out. A patent is there to protect the inventor and let them make some money... now the big corps (it seems) don't want to play by those rules because it is costing them money?
I don't know anymore... I think the problem would be mi
revenge is sooooo sweet! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:revenge is sooooo sweet! (Score:2)
Re:revenge is sooooo sweet! (Score:3, Informative)
All the income they make from patents they hold is used to further research, which *does* benefit us. Sure, we're paying for that, but we're not paying to simply generate profit, we're paying for inventions.
In fact, if they recieved no government funding at all, and totally relied on their inventions, patents and licence revenues, market forces would gi
Re:revenge is sooooo sweet! (Score:2)
"Free Trade" my arse (Score:5, Insightful)
If the US would then similarly like to not honour Australian patents, they're welcome -- given that's what they appear to want anyway.
Re:"Free Trade" my arse (Score:3, Informative)
It's true that the US patent system has major problems. It is not true that the US patent system is biased in favor of patent challengers. It is profoundly biased in favor of patent holders. So "this sort of crap", um, was... from patent challengers. Do you even understand what's going on?
As to patent systems: given the problems with the Australian patent system, you know the old saying about peo
Re:"Free Trade" my arse (Score:2, Insightful)
There is nothing inherently virtuous about Australian companies, there is nothing inherently evil about US companies. Large companies that have the resources to impose their wishes on others will attempt to do so when it suits their needs. This is true wh
Re:"Free Trade" my arse (Score:2)
BTW: The CSIRO are very well respected in Oz and have been practically donating usefull tech to US companies for d
Live by the sword, die by the sword (Score:5, Insightful)
If the companies in question want to reap the benefits of the patent system, they have to pay the price of the patent system. But since most three-year-old children show greater maturity than most of these corporations, it's no surprise that these corporations want to reap the benefits without paying the price.
They're just lucky that the organization in question (the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, a research arm of the Australian government) isn't a competitor. Although I suppose in this case it could use this patent to give Australian companies an advantage over their American competition.
It's about damned time the U.S. corporations got a black eye from the bullshit patent situation over here. After all, they're the ones who have been abusing it. I just wish it happened far more often.
Interesting thing here for me (Score:4, Insightful)
To me this seems purer than a company patenting something and then using that patent as a means to create an artificial monopoly and lock out competitors.
$4 does sound like quite a lot per unit but I wonder if they can do that because they are only on one end of the patent equation.
I'm sure MS, IBM etc would like to charge obscene amounts for a patent they own too but as they are on both the selling and buying end of such deals they maybe cautious about inflating the accepted price of patent licencing?
Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword (Score:2)
oh wait...
You reckon this Aussie patent is bad... (Score:5, Informative)
I think that there should be a blanket patent exemption for pure research, though I'm not quite sure how one should define the exemption.
Definition? (Score:2)
AUS v US, GOV v Private industry (Score:4, Interesting)
6 very large, very well backed AMERICAN companies, are going to take an AUSTRALIAN government backed RESEARCH ORGANISATION in an IP battle.
Right after the free trade agreement was struck, that is meant to bring our IP laws into line with the US?
I hope CSIRO doesn't back down. Stick it to the companies. The same companies that would use those laws to screw anyone else, who infringes on their IP.
C'mon AUSSIE C'mon!
Re:AUS v US, GOV v Private industry (Score:5, Interesting)
That's complete bullshit. I also hope that CSIRO does not back down, and that the companies effectively end up paying $12 per chip, to reimburse CSIRO for its legal costs. I am quite sure that at that point a more sane company will step up with consumer WLAN technology who is happy to pay $4 per chip. I am also quite sure that unless they back the fuck off, I won't buy products from the companies mentioned in TFA anymore.
Re:AUS v US, GOV v Private industry (Score:2)
Oi Oi Oi!
Kinda hypocritical but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kinda hypocritical but... (Score:2)
What have they got to lose? How about OS hardware (Score:3, Insightful)
What these companies should do to get around the patent is to pool their money and develop a *better* Open Source alternative to the patent in question.
If they did that, that 4.00
no relevance but cool (Score:3, Insightful)
Any government funded organization that is built in to a mountain protected by a gaping chasm is not going to worry to much about anything.
Our scientists thought it up we should keep the $4 per chip not like they can't charge an extra $4 for a notebook computer
Re:no relevance but cool (Score:2)
Re:no relevance but cool (Score:2)
Shh, don't let them know (Score:3, Funny)
Good!... (Score:3, Insightful)
I like that inventors get a chance to make a buck off their inventions, that's the productive and creative part that congress orig. talked about when they granted patents.
I'm strongly displeased at the use/mis-use of patents today. They're used as stragic weapons against competetors. They're used to block new technology. They're used to destroy governments and individual rights (think Africa and South America with AIDS drugs). The current patent crap (for instance, patenting of genetic material found in natural foods and herbs) is simply a means to give multinational corps. final fascist control over the world economy. All work will have to be for them, because you'll need their protection and cross-licensing to do anything. You will not be able to wipe your ass with leaves grown in your own back yard if Bayer finds some "cooling gell" in that species that they want to patent. Software patents are making it illegal to work or create for yourself, as without the protection of MS/HP/DELL, your thoughts will have been patented by someone else and you will be breaking the law by using a wheel of your own creation (even if you didn't copy anything).
But in this case, I'll settle for "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." MS/HP/DELL/Netgear/etc. want it their way when it helps them and call for invalidation/threats/whatever/manuvering/spin when they have to pay.... Time for you suckers to pay....I hope they ream you raw too, as I'll happily know that you are eating part of that $4 just to keep the sales numbers up. Better yet, I'd love to see you buy 10M of those chips, only to have them sitting in your fab plants because nobody wants to buy your product at the inflated price.
If they want real reform, they should help to change patent law away from the mess it's in now, otherwise these industry blow-hards should just shut up and keep paying! You know, you can't win all the time..
They don't really want reform though, they simply want control and they're mad at the fact that they DON'T have the patent. They'd do just the same thing roles reversed.
From the patent: (Score:4, Informative)
The "Background of the Invention" section is written in plain English instead of Patentese, and includes the following:
(If it sounds dated, well, the application was filed on the 23rd of November, 1993)
"Accordingly, the need arises for a LAN to which such portable devices can be connected by means of a wireless or radio link.
Such wireless LANs are known, however, hitherto they have been substantially restricted to low data transmission rates. In order to achieve widespread commercial acceptability, it is necessary to have a relatively high transmission rate and therefore transmit on a relatively high frequency, of the order of 1 GHz or higher. As will be explained hereafter, radio transmission at such high frequencies encounters a collection of unique problems.
One wireless LAN which is commercially available is that sold by Motorola under the trade name ALTAIR. This system operates at approximately 18 GHz, however, the maximum data transmission rate is limited to approximately 3-6 Mbit/s. A useful review of this system and the problems of wireless reception at these frequencies and in "office" environments is contained in "Radio Propagation and Anti-multipath Techniques in the WIN Environment", James E. Mitzlaff IEEE Network Magazine November 1991 pp. 21-26.
This engineering designer concludes that the inadequate performance, and the large size, expense and power consumption of the hardware needed to adaptively equalize even a 10 Mbit/s data signal are such that the problems of multipath propagation cannot thereby be overcome in Wireless In-Building Network (WIN) systems. Similarly, spread spectrum techniques which might also be used to combat multipath problems consume too much bandwidth (300 MHz for 10 Mbits/s) to be effective. A data rate of 100 Mbit/s utilizing this technology would therefore consume 3 GHz of bandwidth.
Instead, the solution adopted by Motorola and Mitzlaff is a directional antenna system with 6 beams for each antenna resulting in 36 possible transmission paths to be periodically checked by the system processor in order to locate the "best quality" path and "switch" the antennae accordingly. This procedure adds substantial bulk and cost to the system. This procedure is essentially the conversion of a multipath transmission problem into a single path transmission environment by the use of directional antennae.
OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to provide a wireless LAN in a confined multipath transmission environment having a high bit rate even through the reciprocal of the data or information bit rate (the data "period") is short relative to the time delay differences between significant transmission paths.
Preferably, transmission is enhanced by the use of one or more of the following techniques, namely interactive channel sounding, forward error correction with redundancy sufficient for non-interactive correction, modulation with redundancy sufficient for interactive error correction by re-transmission of at least selected data, and the choice of allocation of data between sub-channels.
The radio transmission is also preferably divided into small packets of data each of which is transmitted over a time period in which the transmission characteristics over the predetermined range are relatively constant.
The encoding of the data is preferably carried out on an ensemble of carriers each costituting a sub-channel and having a different frequency with the modulation of each individual carrier preferably being multi-level modulation of carrier amplitude and/or phase (mQAM).
Have to say that... (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, you can licence it from me for $4 per unit sold. Complain about the patent; if you lose, it becomes $8 per unit. Complain about anything else, and it becomes $12 per unit. Still want to complain, or am I now your newest bestest buddy...?
Almost seems like common sense, which IP law in general is lacking across the board.
Re:Have to say that... (Score:2)
You should consider working for Microsoft - that sounds deliciously evil...
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
It has been discovered that the CSIRO technology could potentially assist enemies of the free world.
The first stage of the attack, dubbed operation "Patent Freedom", could commence as soon as next week.
Bush declares 'war on technologists' (Score:4, Funny)
Dick Cheney, while stroking his missile launch codes briefcase, refused to comment. Rumsfeld barked like a dog.
My comment is way *OFF-topic* (UFO) (Score:2, Offtopic)
If this has already been discussed here at Slashdot, when? I want to know, cause it looks like a UFO. Or is it a joke by google?
Re:My comment is way *OFF-topic* (UFO) (Score:2)
Re:My comment is way *OFF-topic* (UFO) (Score:2)
As an Aussie (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:As an Aussie (Score:4, Insightful)
On the snide remark regarding australias armed forces, lets just remember that in the latest american adventure, it was australian special forces doing a lot of the ground work before the invasion even started. You guys couldn't even stop the looters from robbing the local banks
Re:As an Aussie (Score:4, Informative)
The Australian Bureau of Statistics begs [abs.gov.au] to differ [abs.gov.au] on the supposed "rapidly rising crime rate".
70% of chipset cost (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:70% of chipset cost (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A little help? (Score:5, Informative)
Kind-of a catch-all government sponsored department for scientific research.
See http://www.csiro.au/ [csiro.au]
Re:A little help? (Score:3, Informative)
There is a strong focus on making practical discoveries for use in industry.
Re:A little help? (Score:2, Troll)
Seriously, were all 17 answers really necessary?
Re:SCrew the CSIRO (Score:3, Interesting)
You see, the problem is, the CSIRO is fat on government grants, so they don't have to work hard to survive. The rest of us have to fight for commercial funding by doing gr
Re:The end is here.... (Score:3, Interesting)