Wi-Fi Patent Victory Earns CSIRO $200 Million 267
bennyboy64 writes "iTnews reports the patent battle between Australia's CSIRO and 14 of the world's largest technology companies has gained the research organization $200 million from out of court settlements. CSIRO executive director of commercial, Nigel Poole, said the CSIRO were wanting to license their technology further, stating that he 'urged' companies using it to come forward and seek a license. 'We believe that there are many more companies that are using CSIRO's technology and it's our desire to license the technology further,' Poole said.'We would urge companies that are currently selling devices that have 802.11 a,g or n to contact CSIRO and to seek a license because we believe they are using our technology.'"
Re:Are you fucking serious. (Score:5, Insightful)
Idiocy. CSIRO is nothing like a patent troll. CSIRO developed the technology...
Re:Patent trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Are you fucking serious. (Score:5, Insightful)
Good on them, and hopefully we'll see some more great work from them in the future.
Re:Patent trolls (Score:4, Insightful)
Can someone please justify why we should consider the CSIRO to be a patent troll? They are an actual research organisation (a taxpayer-funded one at that); they don't exist just to file patents and make claims on them. Why are people dismissing them as trolls?
Because it's slashdot. You would be lucky for the majority of posters to read the the summary let alone any background info. Congratulations to the CSIRO for their success on this - in spite of having their funding savaged. Though the technology was patented in 96 so the r+d was possibly done before it became a target of budget cuts.
Re:Speaking of trolls (Score:3, Insightful)
CSIRO is not a patent troll. What is a patent troll? A patent troll is an organisation that exists only to accumulate patents (and make a profit off royalties).
I've tried to make this point, here in the past as well. The responses that I got indicted that there are many Slashdot readers who think "patent troll" is what you call someone who tried to defend a patent in court, irrespective of a) their involvement in the actual invention or b) the defensibility of said patent.
As far as I can tell, this is just backlash from folks who don't understand the patent system as it's intended to protect actual inventors of non-obvious technology, and see actual patent trolls manipulating the system for outrageous gain. I can understand the frustration, there, but it's clearly not a rational approach.
Re:Are you fucking serious. (Score:3, Insightful)
From TFA:
HP, Apple, Intel, Dell, Microsoft and Netgear bringing cases against CSIRO in an attempt to have the research organisation's patent invalidated.
Does anyone else think these companies are the real trolls?
Re:Only fair (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok then, this should be fun :)
So lets put a tax, oh about $2 should do, on any N class wireless device sold outside of Australia, the results would be more favorable to the CSIRO (an Australian tax-payer funded research group) I think.
Re:Only fair (Score:4, Insightful)
The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO) is funded by the Australian tax paying citizens.
It is legitimate for Australians to be rewarded for research they paid for by in the form of licensing fees from the rest of the world.
Re:Only fair (Score:5, Insightful)
Government-owned implies tax-funded, which means that the costs have already been shifted to the general public. How is it legitimate to force people to pay for research and then deny them access to the results?
You missed a few pertinent words in your question Let me add them for you - they make the answer obvious.
How is it legitimate to force Australian people to pay for research and then deny American & European Corporations access to the results?
Re:Are you fucking serious. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Only fair (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Only fair (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, as an Australian taxpayer. It isn't really about the taxes I paid, it's about the taxes that the companies being sued didn't pay.
If an Australian company(or even a foreign company with a certain amount of presence here) wants license the technology they should get it for free. They are, after all, paying Australian taxes, and creating Australian jobs, all of which is good for Australia.
Companies who don't have a certain amount of presence here, aren't paying taxes here, or creating jobs here, can pay for the license. This provides the dual advantage of giving more funding to the CSIRO(which is good), and providing an advantage to companies who provide an advantage to Australians.
It'd be neat if Australians could get the kit $2 cheaper, but I'm happy to pay the extra $2 and give a leg up to folks who want to create jobs here.
Re:can you explain? (Score:3, Insightful)
To be honest, nothing really. Many patented technologies had multiple "inventors" working on very similar lines towards basically the same goal. Sometimes hours is the difference between one person getting the patent and another not.
The patent, similar to copyright, ideally is a trade-off for society. Society gives up the right to use readily available knowledge to the developer of a particular set of knowledge and in return hoping to give incentive for greater knowledge to be developed. In other terms patents, and copyright and other IP laws generally allow for inventors/artists/creators to profit from their creations and thus hopefully use those profits in order to make more creations.
However, recently the cost to society for keeping IP in private hands has been overlooked. The benefit of IP laws in general is real, but they must have moderation.
Re:Are you fucking serious. (Score:3, Insightful)
From my cursory reading, it appears that the technology was independently rediscovered. As far as I know, this isn't a defence in patent cases (except if you discovered it first but didn't publish), but IMHO that should be changed. If you actually gain from using a patent it makes at least some sense that you should pay, but if you independently develop something without knowing about the previous patent, you're just being punished for not being lucky.
I can see plenty of problems with changing this, but I doubt it can make patent cases all that much more complicated.
Re:Only fair (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you?
Re:Are you fucking serious. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Australians would be perfectly happy that an Australian government research organisation funded by their taxes was also making additional income licensing their technologies to overseas and multi-national companies.
I know I am.
Re:Only fair (Score:2, Insightful)
The public yes ... of Australia (Score:5, Insightful)
CSIRO exists because it's publicly funded. It's publicly funded because it's supposed to benefit the public and create research results usable by everybody.
It's publicly funded, yes, but by the people of Australia,, not of the people of other nations. In that sense CSIRO are absolutely entitled to obtain license fees from international companies. I'd also argue that they are entitled to collect fees from Australian companies since that should then allow them to decrease their funding from Australian tax payers.
Re:Only fair (Score:1, Insightful)
As it happens, that's exactly what happens. Australians buy a product that utilises an invention created outside Australia that has, presumably, been patented worldwide. The manufacturer pays a royalty to the patent holder; this royalty is paid by the Australian purchaser of the product, as part of the purchase price.
Penicillin is a non sequitur; the patent on it expired years ago. Similarly DARPA. In exactly the same way, once the patent underlying 802.11* expires, the royalties payable to CSIRO will no longer be necessary.
Re Pencillin and patents.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting viewpoint. How much does Oz contribute to DARPA for the use of internet?
Or to England for Penicillin?
According to the wonderful BBC documentary, "Breaking the Mould", [bbc.co.uk], Florey, the Australian heading the team, was completely against patenting the technology needed to produce it in sufficient quantities, even though one of his colleagues insisted he should.
Because it was needed during the war, it was shown to a US pharmaceutical(?) company who did patent the process, which meant that the original inventors would have to pay for their own invention.
Re:Only fair (Score:2, Insightful)
And how much does USA sell its pharma medicines to the rest of the world? Billions in profits there dude.
How about sony charging 40% more in australia than usa.
Its about time USA paid, its not the magic genie that can only invent things you know.
Sorry, but I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)
If the taxpayer funds the research, the taxpayer owns the results. Nobody should be able to patent something that came about because of taxpayer-funded research.
Furthermore, patented technology shouldn't be allowed to make it into "standards." "Standards" should be open and unencumbered. It's fundamentally anti-competitive to standardize on encumbered technology.
Re:can you explain? (Score:3, Insightful)