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.'"
Only fair (Score:4, Informative)
Pat on the back for CSIRO. One of the ways government-owned research organizations can expect to survive is by monetizing inventions - when companies like Lucent, Buffalo, Linksys, Apple etc. all make a killing off this stuff and didn't invest in its development it is only fair they are forced to pay up.
Re:Only fair (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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
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:4, Interesting)
Or to England for Penicillin?
Or for any of the thousands of inventions funded by non-Australian citizens?
But that would actually cost money, so that cannot possibly be fair.
Re:Only fair (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Walter_Florey [wikipedia.org]
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Are you?
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I think you made may point only stronger.
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.
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If governments invest tax money wisely, then they get a return on that investment and we have to pay less taxes (and the next piece of technology can be developed). It's not like these corporations aren't making money off the wireless technology someone else developed.
Besides which, of these large corporations, how many are Australian? How do Australians benefit from more of their money flowing out of the country for technology they paid to develop?
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?
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Yes because Australians are paying other countries for their tax-funded inventions right?
Taking this path is scary, I think it's the wrong move and I hope it will come back and bite the aussies in the behind.
You are happily using inventions (many of them me
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The Australian general public paid for it.
American companies are exploiting it (and charging Australians premium prices for it).
Do you see why Australians might like to see an organisation which has been funded by us, and will return benefits to us, receiving the profits of their invested capital rather than the money going to organisations which have no connection to the Australian general
Only paid for by the Australian tax payer (Score:2)
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I believe it's Australian. Why should anyone who isn't Australian have the right to use that patent without paying the license?
(I pretty much agree with your basic argument, but not with the details. If the Australian's paid for it with taxes, then there's a good argument that they should be able to use it without paying patent license fees. This argument, however, doesn't work for someone living in, e.g., the US though.)
A different argument would assert that this entire class of things shouldn't be pate
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Basically, every time a patent is granted, an auction is performed over the patent*. Now, 9 times out of ten, the government pays the one who applied for the patent the winning bid*, and the patent is released into public domain. 1 time out of ten, the highest bidder pays, and gets the monopoly. So, the one who applied to the patent gets what the market thinks it is worth. He can bid in the auction himself, and ha
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Different country, my dear friend!
And getting money back for that technology will reduce the bill to the taxpayers in the future.
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Maybe because the Tax Payers of Australia don't want the tax payers of the United States, China, Singapore, Germany, France etc... to benefit without paying taxes towards the research?
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You make the fatal mistake that unless your Australian, you probably didn't fund the initial research.
So to put your question back on you, if your tax dollars weren't spent developing it, what right do you have to use the technology for free?
please define free.
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First of all, government owned does not imply 100% tax funded. In fact it is a common model for applied research institutes to have their government funding tied to licensing and other external income as an incentive for those institutes to do practically relevant research. So for example they may have 50% of their annual budget from the government, and the rest from other sources of income. And of course, whatever money they make on this won't be distributed among shareholder, but re-invested into future p
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....................
Right; It's totally unfair. After so many things were invented by Australians which everyone else benefits from. The motor car; the transistor; the windmill; money; even the wheel. It's time the Australian tax payer got their fair pay back for being the main driver of invention in the world.
I know your being sarcastic but ...
PAYUP as an australian tax payer I would like to
get my money back for
"Black Box" flight recorder .......
Aircraft Navigation (DME)
Penicillin (production in commercial amounts)
Cochlear implant
Contact lenses (long wearing)
Anthrax Vaccine
Heart Pacemaker
Relenza (flu medication)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_measuring_equipment [wikipedia.org]
http://www.questacon.edu.au/indepth/clever/100_years_of_innovations.html [questacon.edu.au]
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Wow, nice sarcasm, and well pointed, because Australians have invented nothing at all [wikipedia.org]...
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1995 - Jindalee Radar System - The United States of America spent $11 billion developing stealth aircraft that could not be detected by radar. Scientists at the CSIRO concluded that if the plane could not be detected, perhaps the turbulence it makes passing through air could be. $1.5 million later, the Jindalee Radar system had transformed the stealth bomber into nothing more than an unusual looking aircraft.
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Nice find. /me sits down to spend the next few hours reading about a good chunk of the stuff this nation has pioneered
how is this fair? (Score:2)
Government-owned organizations are paid for by taxes. Why should I pay once for the invention by taxes and then again through licensing fees?
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Government-owned organizations are paid for by taxes. Why should I pay once for the invention by taxes and then again through licensing fees?
Its my taxes buddy (assuming your not australian) and I would like you to pony up the cash.
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All those companies don't pay taxes or their employees don't?
In WW2, the government nullified many radio patents to get the innovation going real fast. They can also don't have to follow patents internally,
CSIRO now in budget surplus (Score:5, Informative)
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Don't spend it all at once...
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Er, the article you linked to says it's the biggest ever and twice the size of last years, not the first surplus ever.
The interesting (to me) figure in the article is that they have increased the number of scientists employed by 6% over the last 5 years, bringing it to a total of 1837. We hear a lot about the "brain drain" so it's nice to see growth in scientific support.
wifi allergies (Score:2, Funny)
ah, so I should be sending CSIRO the medical bills for my wifi allergy shots!
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Alternatives to 802.11a,g,n (Score:2)
What do you bet there are a few alternatives coming down the pipe soon? IBM, Apple, Intel, everybody coming out with the 'better wireless networking' technology.
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Given how long "N" took to reach standardisation I'd be surprised if any alternative happened "soon".
Grammar has a purpose (Score:2)
Director of Commercial WHAT? Commercial Espionage? Commercial Litigation? Commercial Applications of Research? Or maybe he's Director of Television Commercials? Who can tell?
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Well seen!
You're the king of grammarly!
Horraay! (Score:2)
TCP/IP's history (Score:2)
In other news (Score:4, Funny)
The government announced that CSIRO's funding allocation for next year will be reduced by a one-off amount of $200 million.
The savings will be used to fund a series of very large plaques in school gyms where, by pure coincidence, most polling booths are set up during federal elections.
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:Are you fucking serious. (Score:5, Insightful)
Idiocy. CSIRO is nothing like a patent troll. CSIRO developed the technology...
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.
can you explain? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not so sure. It's not my area, but this patent sounds like it might be an engineering solution, a simple application of known techniques, instead of an invention. The fact that a standards body decided to use this technology (either not knowing about the patent or deliberately ignoring it) also suggests that this is not actually a new technology.
Can you explain what you think is novel and unobvious about this technology?
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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
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the invention is described in full meaning that when it does expire any man or his dog can replicate the technology without having to conduct the research.
Many modern patents are vague enough to make it extremely difficult (at best) or impossible (at worst) to implement the technology from the patent documentation.
Whilst I agree that in principle patents are a nice idea, I think in practice the pros are usually outweighed by the cons (whether they be for physical stuff, software, etc.).
A fundamental problem with patents is that they don't deal with independent invention at all: If you develop something and I use your invention then it is fair enough that I s
Re:can you explain? (Score:4, Informative)
I can name two "traditional" inventions in the 19th Century (just off the top of my head) that had nearly identical patent applications that arrived within a day or two to the USPTO:
Yeah, I'd say that simultaneous patent applications are a serious problem, and patent law doesn't really deal with research efforts where obvious areas of research are looked at by multiple individuals.
At least in terms of copyright, if two authors come up with similar topics and submit the books to the library of congress at nearly the same time, all that happens is that the books get classified with the same catalog number (mostly) putting them on the shelf next to each other. The copyright is completely in force for both books (presuming one author didn't plagiarize the other in a blatant manner).
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Yeah, I'd say that simultaneous patent applications are a serious problem, and patent law doesn't really deal with research efforts where obvious areas of research are looked at by multiple individuals.
It isn't really "simultaneous patents" which are the problem - you shouldn't *have* to patent your invention to avoid getting sued by someone who invented and patented theirs at the same time.
In fact, it isn't even "simultaneous" inventions which are the problem - it's simply the fact that you shouldn't be expected to pay another inventor just because you happen to come up with the same thing independently. If you invent something and then 10 years later I invent the same thing with no knowledge of your in
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Since it's impossible to:
a) travel back in time,
b) read minds,
c) prove a negative,
such a system would be completely unworkable.
Re:can you explain? (Score:4, Informative)
Given the current copyright and patent shenanigans that are in-play, I'd rather take my chances with no such system in place. How am I supposed to benefit from an inventor's time-limited monopoly if it doesn't expire until after my death? I am supposed to benefit from this deal, right?
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Garbage. If someoene can't be bothered to check whether something already exists before inventing it, then he's a fool.
1. Most lawyers will tell you absolutely not to do a patent check because there can be serious legal repercussions to doing so.
2. How do you propose finding out whether something has already been patented? There are a *lot* of patent applications, sifting through them to discover whether or not your invention (or a component thereof) has already been patented would be prohibitively costly for all but the largest of organisations.
3. At where do you draw the line? Are you going to go through the time and ex
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First of all: people? So all of a sudden everybody is an inventor?
Not everyone, but a high proportion of the professional population are.
inventor is an occupation
Not really. Pretty much anyone working in a creative technical field will be "inventing" on pretty much a daily basis. Many (but not all) of these "inventions" are fairly trivial, but still patentable. We're talking about things like electronic circuits, microcontroller designs, etc. I.e. the stuff that "normal people" in the technical fields do *all the time*. Software developers are also coming up with new ideas pretty much all th
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I'm guessing this is a big part of why they don't honor independent simultaneous invention. It means that if you had a mole in a competitor's development space, they could secretly feed you enough data that you can reproduce the invention cycle on your own with only a slight delay.
Disregarding the inability to authenticate independent invention; if two inventors did have a patent on the same invention, then licensing becomes a bidding war for wh
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I'm guessing this is a big part of why they don't honor independent simultaneous invention. It means that if you had a mole in a competitor's development space, they could secretly feed you enough data that you can reproduce the invention cycle on your own with only a slight delay.
It works both ways - the mole could provide enough information for the competitor to actually get ahead and file a patent before the company that did most of the work. There are plenty of cases where this has happened.
Disregarding the inability to authenticate independent invention; if two inventors did have a patent on the same invention, then licensing becomes a bidding war for which inventor will offer a lower licensing cost. One of the main purposes of a patent is to allow an inventor to recover the cost of research & development; now these inventors would instead be in a position where they were trying to minimize loss.
With the existing "single inventor" model, one of the inventors basically gets to charge whatever they like (even to the point of making it prohibitively expensive to licence, so that they can keep the invention for just their own products, keeping competition out of the end-user market as we
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http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2708730.htm [abc.net.au]
If you're lucky, this might work in your region.
Re:can you explain? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Fixed that for 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.
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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?
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Duh.
Though the way so many American companies have been allowed to transform themselves into brutal, antisocial organisations speaks more of a failed regulatory climate than an inherent failure of the businesses themselves.
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The patent system is the troll.
A non-adversarial way of promoting the advancement of the arts and sciences would remove the basis for these sorts of wasteful, expensive court fights, just for starters. No one would have to fear being sued by trolls or threatened by huge patent portfolios. Wouldn't have to weigh whether using hundreds of tiny little ideas, even those ideas one came up with independently, is worth the risk.
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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.
Everybody? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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CSIRO is only about 50% publicly funded. The rest comes from patents, product sales, and other commercial work. I personally think it should be 100% publicly funded (so it could give its good work to the public for free), but that's another argument.
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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 d
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They are nothing alike. PARC is a private, corporate research lab. CSIRO is a public, government funded organization.
Re:Patent trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are you referring to the CSIRO, or the people posting here who claim they [the CSIRO] are patent trolls? :P
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.
in spite of having their funding savaged? (Score:5, Informative)
Er, according to this article [news.com.au]:
What "savaging" are you talking about?
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Wow, you have no fucking idea. You didn't even get through the first sentence of the summary.
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Hint: the very first line of the summary is "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." Now how much US taxpayer funds do you think have been involved in this?
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I can make shit up too. Fuck off, they deserve to be paid for their contribution to technology today. CSIRO has made some amazing developments and licensing their discoveries is an excellent way to get more funding, as long as they're not charging absurd amounts.
Re:Patent trolls (Score:5, Informative)
Except that they aren't patent trolls - they are the Australian Government's science organisation - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), they have been in this battle for quite a while.
Read up on the WLAN stuff here http://www.csiro.gov.au/science/wireless-LANs.html [csiro.gov.au]
Then get back to us when you think that inventing wireless networking technology is easy and doesn't warrant the possibility of being patented.
read up on the history (Score:2)
Wireless networking was developed by amateur radio operators, not by CSIRO. By the time CSIRO filed its patent (1996), you already could buy WLAN hardware commercially. CSIRO patented some specific techniques that happened to be present in several standards, but it's not even clear whether what they patented is an engineering solution (not patentable) or a true invention (patentable). That's why companies decided to challenge their patent in court.
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Speaking of trolls (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't this an indication that the system is severely flawed when someone pops up very late to the table and claims that they own it?
[...] Softwares and methods are too easy to re-invent all over again, and who can tell if a certain solution has been available before and then silently put to the grave for one reason or another?
Speaking of trolls, you are one yourself. Before you mod me into oblivion, hear me out.
In your post, you seem to claim that (1) CSIRO is a patent troll; and that (2) the patent is a software patent, thus is unethical. Both claims are patently false. (ha ha)
For starters, to address claim (1), 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). CSIRO is not a patent troll! They are an Australian Govern
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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
Re:Speaking of trolls (Score:5, Interesting)
The nicest example I have heard of patents working the right way is the Rolling Loop IMAX Projector [in70mm.com]. The IMAX developers actually went to Ron Jones's home in Western Australia, looked at his prototype projector and pretty much bought his patent on the spot.
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but because the name is too close to CISRO that it would confuse a jury
... looks like a jury wouldn't be the only one confused.
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So CISCO was using CSIRO technology without licensing it? Shame!
Re:Desire to license (Score:5, Informative)
Cisco aren't on the list because they already have a licence for the tech for which they pay royalties.
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That certainly helps explain their router prices! Good to hear of a company doing it the proper way. Many companies try to only respect IP law when it benefits them.
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Cisco is absent because they are a valid licensee. http://wifinetnews.com/archives/2008/10/different_interpretation_of_buffalo_csiro_patent_appeal.html [wifinetnews.com]
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Or because of legitimate patents: A patent is designed to increase the price of a product to the highest possible level the market can bear.
For drugs this means a 1000% mark-up at least, based on the price drop if drugs go 'generic'.