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CSIRO wifi patent

Revision as of 00:48, 2 June 2010 by Ciaran (talk | contribs) (As of 2010, CSIRO is in the process of litigating six more companies (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Lenovo, Sony, and Acer).)

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian organisation which is called a patent troll by some.

In 2009, CSIRO got an out of court settlement from fourteen companies (3-Com, Accton, Asus, Belkin, Buffalo, D-Link, Dell, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Netgear, Nintendo, SMC, and Toshiba) for infringing certain claims of United States Patent No. 5,487,069. As of 2010, CSIRO is in the process of litigating six more companies (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Lenovo, Sony, and Acer).[1] This was after the companies reneged on a deal to pay royalties during the standards process.[reference needed]


About the patent: software patent?

The patent is described as "a wireless LAN, a peer-to-peer wireless LAN, a wireless transceiver and a method of transmitting data, all of which are capable of operating at frequencies in excess of 10 GHz and in multipath transmission environments." A number of the claims do not include the 10GHz limitation and therefore are said to apply more generally to wireless communications including those covered by the 802.11(a), (g) and (n) standards.

Litigation and licensing

An initial case against Buffalo was filed February 2, 2005.[2]. CSIRO has filed a number of patent infringement cases since.[3]

The first court case took place in 2006. The USA's Federal Court of the Eastern District of Texas ruled in favour of CSIRO in a summary judgment, confirming the patent's validity.[4]

On an appeal of the district court ruling, in September 2008, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) found the patent was not anticipated and infringed, but remanded the case to reconsider the non-obviousness of the patent in view of the KSR v. Teleflex case.[5] (QUESTION: did the district court case happen?)

As a general note: The claims of a patent are "anticipated" when all of the elements of the claim are found in a single reference. A patent is "obvious" when the combination of two or more references provide all of the elements of a patent, and a person having ordinary skill in the art would have a reason to combine the references.[reference needed]


HP settled on April 2nd 2009.[6]

On April 22nd 2009, the other parties in the case chose to settle.[7] There are no figures anywhere for how much money was involved in these settlements. Some experts suggest US$ 250 million, and that the total royalties over time could exceed US$ 1 billion.[8]

The patent is currently undergoing ex parte reexamination at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The reexamination was filed on behalf of Intel. The USPTO found that the request raised a substantial new question of patentability and ordered reexamination on February 20, 2009. The reexamination application number is 90/010,367.

Related pages on ESP Wiki

External links

Patently-o coverage

Links to be sorted later

References