suolumark writes "The CSIRO has won what could be a landmark settlement from Hewlett Packard over the use of patented wireless technology. The settlement ended HP's involvement in a four-year lawsuit brought by the CSIRO on a group of technology companies, in which the organisation was seeking royalties for wi-fi technology that is used extensively on laptops and computers worldwide. CSIRO spokesman Luw Morgan earlier said legal action was continuing against 13 companies: Intel, Dell, Toshiba, Asus, Netgear, D-Link, Belkin, SMC, Accton, 3-Com, Buffalo, Microsoft and Nintendo."
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday April 02 2009, @07:48PM (#27439291)
Remember, folks: the CSIRO is fundamentally a research institution, first and foremost. They develop technologies, patent them, and then license the patents out to the manufacturing companies. Income from the patent royalties goes towards further research work.
They've done some genuinely fantastic work in a wide range of areas. Polymer banknotes [wikipedia.org] are one of their products. Agricultural research. Marine sciences. They cover a very broad base, and are very much respected in Australia for the work they do.
Personally? I hope the CSIRO wins these battles. At least with this mob, I know the money will be going to further R&D, rather than flowing to the coffers of people who don't do anything productive for society (as happens with "real" patent trolls.)
The research is largely paid for by the Australian tax payer, and the ownership of the fruits of their labor should also rest there, rather than beinb plowed back into building an ivory tower that suffers from out of control growth in the face of shrinking budgets,
In the US we are a little suspect of agencies like this, (although we do have some).
We tend to prefer the NASA, DARPA, TVA model of public
I suppose that's the difference between Australian and American patent law. If patent law is like copyright law in the following regard, a government institution can not hold a copyright, so they might be exempt from holding patents as well (which is why NASA has been such a boon, any space technologies are immediately released to the public).
Well, gee, unlike America we don't have untold billions to 'waste' on research, so we went a different route. To think that American corporations would ignore patents because American law might allow you to do so in these circumstances is disgusting; your corporations expect everyone else to acknowledge their IP and now they would blatantly disregard someone else's? Hypocrisy and greed, not that I've come to expect anything else from American companies.
it's not. working at a government R&D lab, I can assure you we are encouraged to both publish and patent as much as we are able. Now, we have a nice filter in place to clamp down on patent applications that wouldn't even be worth the taxpayer dollars to maintain. But, we have a tech transfer office that actively pursues licensing patents, and will go after contractors that patent things that were invented under government contract. The gov't generally doesn't manufacture things, but right now the general notion is that if we've paid for technology once, we shouldn't have to pay to use it later if someone else patents it, and licensing fees can help recoup R&D expenditure. They also have a really nice dividend sharing structure with the inventors, which is rare in industry.
Sure, some of that data ends up in the hands of the average person, but it seems to be increasingly funding in "black box" projects where, while the public gets a shiny new spacecraft, the specs are tied up in "national security" or other laws effectively removing a lot of the benefit.
The research is largely paid for by the Australian tax payer [...]
If by "largely", you mean 60%, that's correct. Some 40% of the CSIRO budget comes from sales (e.g. publishing), commercial spinoffs, public-private partnerships and royalties.
Yes and no. The question is how did these patents get into the 802.11 standard. And is this a legitimate patent or a blatantly obvious one?
To say well its OK for a government funded body to base their business model on licensing patents But its not OK for a private company to do so is a double standard. Basically saying the motive justifies the act.
To my mind the motive does not excuse the act. If patent trolling, especially on standards, is wrong then it is wrong on all cases.
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday April 02 2009, @08:29PM (#27439659)
During the Wi-Fi standardisation, CSIRO's patented IP was knowingly included in the standard. CSIRO stated that they would be happy for this to happen, provided they could collect a small royalty on Wi-Fi hardware. Everyone seemed happy with this, and the standardisation occured.
Then manufacturers started producing hardware without paying CSIRO. Over the next few years, CSIRO repeatedly sent letters requesting royalties. They didn't have much luck.
In the end, after years of negotiation, they decided court action was required. This was a big step, since it required them to set aside a significant proportion of their budget to pay for legal costs.
They have a valid claim, and they've been more than reasonable.
Remember, folks: the CSIRO is fundamentally a research institution, first and foremost. They develop technologies, patent them, and then license the patents out to the manufacturing companies. Income from the patent royalties goes towards further research work.
Unfortunately the patent they won here was for OFDM. Which was developed in the 1960s. Their patent claims were specifically limited to applications above 10GHz, but somehow or another they managed to prevail in court against manufacturers making devices in the 2-6 Ghz range. It's 100% BS.
They are in the position of having made a contribution to research program on which CSIRO was a collaborator, and are now being asked to pony up to use the patent. To quote from the research paper [jwdalton.com]:
Acknowledgments
The CSIRO Systems and Devices Hardware Program and the Hewlett-Packard External Research Grants Program funded Macquarie University research on the WLAN project from 1991-1996 and 1995-1996 respectively.
The patent (USPTO 5487069) was filed on November 23, 1993 and issued on January 23, 1996. HP contributed funding from 1995-1996, so I guess it can be claimed that they didn't contribute to the patent, but it's still got to leave a bad taste in the mouth. The point is that HP might be a special case and not indicative of the treatment other defendants might get. I'd be intrigued to know what Macquarie University's contribution was from 1991 to November 23, 1993 (which was before my time on the project).
The Macquarie University involvement was led by Dave Skellern, and in 1993-1994 was based out of the Department of Research Electronics. They heavily contributed to the 802.11 standard.
This group incorporated as Radiata, and produced (one of?) the first 802.11a chipsets, the R-M11a. Radiata was acquired by Cisco in November 2000, for US$250M.
I worked in MQU DRE between 1993-94, and my recollection is that most of the funding came from CSIRO at the time. But it has been a long, long time.
You are correct. I worked at CSIRO at that time - joining shortly after the patent was applied for. I knew all the people involved (two are still friends of mine) and they are a very good bunch of people. The guy at CSIRO driving the litigation is a bit of a dick though, and not well thought of, and I think that raises a few eyebrows around the place.
Also, Skellern is a smart guy, but a real little operator. I remember I did a whole lot of multipath channel simulation work, which I happily shared with his g
If you're meaning Apple, then perhaps it's indicative of only companies that produce wifi chipsets. Sure, Apple hardware has wifi technology in their computers but doesn't manufacture, per se, the wifi chips?
Cisco has probably already licensed the patent. They bought Radiata Communications [nytimes.com], the company which was set up to commercialise the results of the CSIRO/Macquarie University WLAN project, so licensing issues were probably dealt with then.
They don't want IBM to buy them out, like SCO. SCO is still waiting on its buy-out... IBM wants to stamp on the company a little more before the stock price is low enough for a purchase. Their advisers probably recommended against any actions that could be construed as hostility towards IBM.
The CSIRO is suing the wrong people. They should be suing the chip manufactures(Broadcom, Intel, Atheros, and maybe some others), not the people who bought chips and had them re-branded.
Nope, responsibility for paying royalties usually falls with the last link in the chain before the customer. It's not unheard of for the chip manufacturers to pay for licensing and then include the cost of that licensing in their chip cost to the OEM, but in my experience the OEM usually handles royalty payments.
Solve problems... like "How do we prevent the wireless revolution by patent-trolling the standards committees"?
Gee, that's a useful skill. They should probably get with the DRAM committees and see if they can extend their work to the innovation of preventing new memory technologies, or partner with Intel on the prevention of higher resolution lithography. You know, for the social good that would arise from bringing a screaming halt to technological progress.
So it is okay for American based patent trolls to do this completely unchecked and ignored by your population at large for completely frivolous patents but when another country that has a legitimate patent comes a long wanting what is rightfully theirs BY YOUR BROKEN SYSTEM they are the true villains. Home of the brave indeed.
(Not a troll but with a majority American audience I'll bet I'll have the +5 troll achievement in no time with this opinion.)
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday April 02 2009, @11:59PM (#27441121)
So you'd prefer it to be the other way? CSIRO getting screwed by big companies, like it has in the past.
I say good on them, they need the funding. I know a few CSIRO scientists and they are always getting dicked with pay and contracts because the organisation keeps getting dicked out of funds.
If it was patent trolling they'd have just submitted the patent rather than showing proof of concept and actually developing the technology.
Learn what patent-trolling is before you troll yourself.
I thought the modus operandi of a patent troll was to go after the little fish who either didnt have the money to defend themselves so settled out of court, or who tried to defend themselves and lost so setting s precedent with which to go after the big fish with.
Looks like the CSIRO thought they had a strong case and went after the big boys straight off and the courts agreed with them. I'm sure HP threw everything they had at them, which your garden variety patent troll wouldn't survive.
Do patent trolls: -disclose their patents ahead of time in the working group -agree to let their patents be used in the standard as long as compensation is paid -contact the infringing companies immediatly after the standard was formed, continuing for 10 years, getting the cold shoulder, before FINALLY suing them
Oh.. wait... you mean you couldn't even RTFA, let alone do 2 minutes of googling about the situation?
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday April 02 2009, @10:08PM (#27440453)
They are not 'raising money via lawsuits'. The way you say that makes it sound like it was part of their business model. That is completely false.
Other companies *agreed to pay* royalties to license the technology when the standard was being ratified.
Then, the other companies basically said: "agreed to pay? agreed to pay what? what is this agreed to pay you are referring to? I don't see anyone named 'agreed to pay' around here, perhaps you are lost?"
The companies took the tech and didn't pay anything, in blatant violation of the terms of the agreement, and are now being sued as the CSIRO's last recourse.
The CSIRO has been negotiating with these companies for YEARS trying to get the royalties to which they are entitled. The companies were given ample time to come good without getting the courts involved.
Apparently though, American companies only feel as though they should pay royalties for IP from other American companies, and everyone else can get stuffed.
Well, who's stuffed now?
I dislike the patent system as much as anyone, but this is an organisation who is using it in an honest fashion, for its intended purpose - to encourage innovation and actually develop useful products with their patents. Other companies tried to take the technology and not pay anything, and are now being forced to pay up.
This is one case where the patent system truly is working as it should.
That you know of, the csiro has been contacting the companies producing these chipsets for quite some time, wanting royalties, only after years of refusal did they sue.
The question then becomes, is it legal to give someone infringing your patents ample time to sort out patent issues after contacting them before suing, I'd like to think yes.
You don't have it right. The patents were mentioned in the process, and CSIRO has been contacting companies for YEARS. They only filed the lawsuits when they finally realized these companies were never going to pay up.
In 2005, company files lawsuit across huge base of manufacturers... <ranty-rant-rant>
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!
No, sorry bluefoxlucid, CSIRO is not a company. And as others have already replied, yes it is legal the companies were told about the infringement and been given plenty of time to cough up.
Now I know it's part of the fun of/. to get all up in arms at the sniff of a patent troll, but in this case there isn't one. RTFA and do a wiki search for CSIRO. Then come back and post a "meh" or something.
Here's the patent [uspto.gov]. And it's pretty damn comprehensive. The patent was filed for in 1993, and granted in 1996.
As in the report here (2000) [timeshighe...tion.co.uk], CSIRO attempted to license the tech and recieve royalties but then in 2005, big tech companies didn't want to play ball [smh.com.au] anymore.
I say, good work CSIRO - screw these guys for every penny and keep on conducting your groundbreaking research.
Pony up the prior art and get the patent invalidated. I'm sure you'll get a big kiss from "Intel, Dell, Toshiba, Asus, Netgear, D-Link, Belkin, SMC, Accton, 3-Com, Buffalo, Microsoft and Nintendo"
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday April 02 2009, @09:29PM (#27440161)
As said by others [slashdot.org], CSIRO was in there from the beginning asking for royalties. It only went to court after a decade of negotiation failed.
The CSIRO has been chasing the hardware companies for years. The paper trail is a mile long. The CSIRO should be complimented for only pressing the SUE button as a last resort.
The hardware companies, on the other hand, deserve a swift kick to the nuts. But a payout will have to do.
Because eventually, if they ignore the law enough times, they get a government bai... I mean the company gets rolled up and the sale profits go to the claimant
Bloody hell... (Score:3, Funny)
These guys aren't your normal patent trolls. (Score:5, Informative)
Remember, folks: the CSIRO is fundamentally a research institution, first and foremost. They develop technologies, patent them, and then license the patents out to the manufacturing companies. Income from the patent royalties goes towards further research work.
They've done some genuinely fantastic work in a wide range of areas. Polymer banknotes [wikipedia.org] are one of their products. Agricultural research. Marine sciences. They cover a very broad base, and are very much respected in Australia for the work they do.
Personally? I hope the CSIRO wins these battles. At least with this mob, I know the money will be going to further R&D, rather than flowing to the coffers of people who don't do anything productive for society (as happens with "real" patent trolls.)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember folks that this is a government funded and sponsored organization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSIRO [wikipedia.org]
The research is largely paid for by the Australian tax payer, and the ownership of the fruits of their labor should also rest there, rather than beinb plowed back into building an ivory tower that suffers from out of control growth in the face of shrinking budgets,
In the US we are a little suspect of agencies like this, (although we do have some).
We tend to prefer the NASA, DARPA, TVA model of public
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, gee, unlike America we don't have untold billions to 'waste' on research, so we went a different route. To think that American corporations would ignore patents because American law might allow you to do so in these circumstances is disgusting; your corporations expect everyone else to acknowledge their IP and now they would blatantly disregard someone else's? Hypocrisy and greed, not that I've come to expect anything else from American companies.
Re:These guys aren't your normal patent trolls. (Score:5, Informative)
"If patent law is like copyright law in the following regard..."
http://www.google.com/patents?q=assignee%3A+united+states+of+america [google.com]
it's not. working at a government R&D lab, I can assure you we are encouraged to both publish and patent as much as we are able. Now, we have a nice filter in place to clamp down on patent applications that wouldn't even be worth the taxpayer dollars to maintain. But, we have a tech transfer office that actively pursues licensing patents, and will go after contractors that patent things that were invented under government contract. The gov't generally doesn't manufacture things, but right now the general notion is that if we've paid for technology once, we shouldn't have to pay to use it later if someone else patents it, and licensing fees can help recoup R&D expenditure. They also have a really nice dividend sharing structure with the inventors, which is rare in industry.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The "specs" of a spacecraft are rather useless unless you plan on building one... what's important is the research done.
Re:These guys aren't your normal patent trolls. (Score:4, Funny)
..which is why they should allow Australian taxpayer-owned companies like HP to use their tech for free!
Wait...
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
If by "largely", you mean 60%, that's correct. Some 40% of the CSIRO budget comes from sales (e.g. publishing), commercial spinoffs, public-private partnerships and royalties.
If the Shoe fits ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes and no. The question is how did these patents get into the 802.11 standard. And is this a legitimate patent or a blatantly obvious one?
To say well its OK for a government funded body to base their business model on licensing patents But its not OK for a private company to do so is a double standard. Basically saying the motive justifies the act.
To my mind the motive does not excuse the act. If patent trolling, especially on standards, is wrong then it is wrong on all cases.
The only mitigating fact
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And that the relevant commitee did this on the expectation that the CSIRO would not enforce their patent.
Which apparently is exactly what happened. [theregister.co.uk]
Re:If the Shoe fits ... (Score:5, Informative)
During the Wi-Fi standardisation, CSIRO's patented IP was knowingly included in the standard. CSIRO stated that they would be happy for this to happen, provided they could collect a small royalty on Wi-Fi hardware. Everyone seemed happy with this, and the standardisation occured.
Then manufacturers started producing hardware without paying CSIRO. Over the next few years, CSIRO repeatedly sent letters requesting royalties. They didn't have much luck.
In the end, after years of negotiation, they decided court action was required. This was a big step, since it required them to set aside a significant proportion of their budget to pay for legal costs.
They have a valid claim, and they've been more than reasonable.
Parent
Re:These guys aren't your normal patent trolls. (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately the patent they won here was for OFDM. Which was developed in the 1960s. Their patent claims were specifically limited to applications above 10GHz, but somehow or another they managed to prevail in court against manufacturers making devices in the 2-6 Ghz range. It's 100% BS.
Parent
HP is an interesting case (Score:5, Informative)
They are in the position of having made a contribution to research program on which CSIRO was a collaborator, and are now being asked to pony up to use the patent. To quote from the research paper [jwdalton.com]:
The patent (USPTO 5487069) was filed on November 23, 1993 and issued on January 23, 1996. HP contributed funding from 1995-1996, so I guess it can be claimed that they didn't contribute to the patent, but it's still got to leave a bad taste in the mouth. The point is that HP might be a special case and not indicative of the treatment other defendants might get. I'd be intrigued to know what Macquarie University's contribution was from 1991 to November 23, 1993 (which was before my time on the project).
(Yes, I'm one of the authors on the paper.)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The Macquarie University involvement was led by Dave Skellern, and in 1993-1994 was based out of the Department of Research Electronics. They heavily contributed to the 802.11 standard.
This group incorporated as Radiata, and produced (one of?) the first 802.11a chipsets, the R-M11a. Radiata was acquired by Cisco in November 2000, for US$250M.
I worked in MQU DRE between 1993-94, and my recollection is that most of the funding came from CSIRO at the time. But it has been a long, long time.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You are correct. I worked at CSIRO at that time - joining shortly after the patent was applied for. I knew all the people involved (two are still friends of mine) and they are a very good bunch of people. The guy at CSIRO driving the litigation is a bit of a dick though, and not well thought of, and I think that raises a few eyebrows around the place.
Also, Skellern is a smart guy, but a real little operator. I remember I did a whole lot of multipath channel simulation work, which I happily shared with his g
what, no fruit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Intel, Dell, Toshiba, Asus, Netgear, D-Link, Belkin, SMC, Accton, 3-Com, Buffalo, Microsoft and Nintendo."
Notice one missing? What happened there? (did they actually license rather than "borrow without permission"?)
Actually I suppose I don't see Compaq anywhere in there either. Any other big names I'm overlooking?
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If you're meaning Apple, then perhaps it's indicative of only companies that produce wifi chipsets. Sure, Apple hardware has wifi technology in their computers but doesn't manufacture, per se, the wifi chips?
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I'm not sure, just my wild speculation. But MS and Nintendo do have wifi enabled game consoles, so possibly their own silicon too.
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Good point, Lenovo isn't on there. Or maybe that's under IBM since this is before the spinoff?
Sony (Score:2)
Notice one missing?
Sony, the third console maker.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sony makes consoles? Have they sold any?
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Suing the wrong people (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Suing the wrong people (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should the Australian Government fund research that benefits US, japanese and Korean companies?
These guys are not patent trolls. they are set up to do research and solve problems.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Solve problems... like "How do we prevent the wireless revolution by patent-trolling the standards committees"?
Gee, that's a useful skill. They should probably get with the DRAM committees and see if they can extend their work to the innovation of preventing new memory technologies, or partner with Intel on the prevention of higher resolution lithography. You know, for the social good that would arise from bringing a screaming halt to technological progress.
Re:What we need (Score:5, Insightful)
(Not a troll but with a majority American audience I'll bet I'll have the +5 troll achievement in no time with this opinion.)
Parent
Re:What we need (Score:5, Insightful)
So you'd prefer it to be the other way? CSIRO getting screwed by big companies, like it has in the past.
I say good on them, they need the funding. I know a few CSIRO scientists and they are always getting dicked with pay and contracts because the organisation keeps getting dicked out of funds.
If it was patent trolling they'd have just submitted the patent rather than showing proof of concept and actually developing the technology.
Learn what patent-trolling is before you troll yourself.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought the modus operandi of a patent troll was to go after the little fish who either didnt have the money to defend themselves so settled out of court, or who tried to defend themselves and lost so setting s precedent with which to go after the big fish with.
Looks like the CSIRO thought they had a strong case and went after the big boys straight off and the courts agreed with them. I'm sure HP threw everything they had at them, which your garden variety patent troll wouldn't survive.
Re:What we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Do patent trolls:
-disclose their patents ahead of time in the working group
-agree to let their patents be used in the standard as long as compensation is paid
-contact the infringing companies immediatly after the standard was formed, continuing for 10 years, getting the cold shoulder, before FINALLY suing them
Oh.. wait... you mean you couldn't even RTFA, let alone do 2 minutes of googling about the situation?
Parent
Re:What we need (Score:5, Interesting)
They are not 'raising money via lawsuits'. The way you say that makes it sound like it was part of their business model. That is completely false.
Other companies *agreed to pay* royalties to license the technology when the standard was being ratified.
Then, the other companies basically said: "agreed to pay? agreed to pay what? what is this agreed to pay you are referring to? I don't see anyone named 'agreed to pay' around here, perhaps you are lost?"
The companies took the tech and didn't pay anything, in blatant violation of the terms of the agreement, and are now being sued as the CSIRO's last recourse.
The CSIRO has been negotiating with these companies for YEARS trying to get the royalties to which they are entitled. The companies were given ample time to come good without getting the courts involved.
Apparently though, American companies only feel as though they should pay royalties for IP from other American companies, and everyone else can get stuffed.
Well, who's stuffed now?
I dislike the patent system as much as anyone, but this is an organisation who is using it in an honest fashion, for its intended purpose - to encourage innovation and actually develop useful products with their patents. Other companies tried to take the technology and not pay anything, and are now being forced to pay up.
This is one case where the patent system truly is working as it should.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Yes
Re:How the fuck is this legal? (Score:5, Informative)
No mention of patents
That you know of, the csiro has been contacting the companies producing these chipsets for quite some time, wanting royalties, only after years of refusal did they sue.
The question then becomes, is it legal to give someone infringing your patents ample time to sort out patent issues after contacting them before suing, I'd like to think yes.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You don't have it right. The patents were mentioned in the process, and CSIRO has been contacting companies for YEARS. They only filed the lawsuits when they finally realized these companies were never going to pay up.
Re:How the fuck is this legal? (Score:4, Informative)
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!
No, sorry bluefoxlucid, CSIRO is not a company. And as others have already replied, yes it is legal the companies were told about the infringement and been given plenty of time to cough up.
Now I know it's part of the fun of /. to get all up in arms at the sniff of a patent troll, but in this case there isn't one. RTFA and do a wiki search for CSIRO. Then come back and post a "meh" or something.
Parent
Re:How the fuck is this legal? (Score:5, Informative)
As in the report here (2000) [timeshighe...tion.co.uk], CSIRO attempted to license the tech and recieve royalties but then in 2005, big tech companies didn't want to play ball [smh.com.au] anymore.
I say, good work CSIRO - screw these guys for every penny and keep on conducting your groundbreaking research.
Parent
Packet Radio (Score:2)
Oh, my... I do believe I violated this patent in 1985.
Groundbreaking research my ass.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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Bzzt.
A lot of people don't know that long before cellular phone technology was adapted for voice it was originally a data network.
Which sort of makes Apple's "No tethering app" rule a little ironic.
I'm not claiming I invented this stuff, but I definitely used it.
Re:How the fuck is this legal? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:How the fuck is this legal? (Score:4, Insightful)
The CSIRO has been chasing the hardware companies for years. The paper trail is a mile long. The CSIRO should be complimented for only pressing the SUE button as a last resort.
The hardware companies, on the other hand, deserve a swift kick to the nuts. But a payout will have to do.
Parent
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