Is Australia's CSIRO a Patent Troll? 175
schliz writes "Australian tech publication iTnews is defining 'patent trolls' as those who claim rights to an invention without commercializing it, and notes that government research organization CSIRO could come under that definition. The CSIRO in April reached a $220 million settlement over three U.S. telcos' usage of WLAN that it invented in the early 1990s. Critics have argued that the CSIRO had failed to contribute to the world's first wifi 802.11 standard, failed to commercialize the wifi chip through its spin-off, Radiata, and chose to wage its campaign in the Eastern District courts of Texas, a location favored by more notorious patent trolls."
Re:umm (Score:5, Interesting)
what csiro does with patents in the commercial world is called "business".
i say good on csiro for working for their major shareholder - the aussie taxpayer.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly.
Furthermore, CSIRO immediately reinvested almost all of this money into developing better wireless technology for rural communities in Australia and worldwide (as part of the NBN project). If patent trolls used their gains for research instead of lining pockets of the rich I imagine we'd all have a very different opinion of them.
Re:Strewth, the article's a bag of arse, mate. (Score:5, Interesting)
It was commercialised (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:umm (Score:2, Interesting)
Except it was trivial. They simply moved techniques long know in the radar industry to low-power routers to prevent them being swamped by reflection of their own signals. So, by your own definition: Trolling.