Interesting People mailing list archives

more on re: Wi-Fi standards face patent threat


From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 12:18:12 -0500



Begin forwarded message:

From: Patrick Sinz <ps () ethiqa com>
Date: November 29, 2006 11:59:01 AM EST
To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Re: [IP] more on re: Wi-Fi standards face patent threat
Reply-To: ps () ethiqa com

This illustrate why "RAND" licenses are not acceptable within standards.
The W3 consortium is very right in refusing these "compromise".

BTW if this "escalate", it could potentially throw wifi connections out for Free Software
platforms.
Unless the licensing is "imbedded" with the hardware there will be no way to collect the fees in a
Free environment.
And since it is quite possible that the licenses will be linked to the firmware: we might well be
in bad shape.
It might have an interesting effect on "open WRT" kind of efforts.

Cheers
    [ps]

--- David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:



Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: November 28, 2006 6:29:07 PM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] re: Wi-Fi standards face patent threat
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com

[Note:  This comment comes from reader Mark Laubach.  DLH]

From: Mark Laubach <laubach () inconvenient net>
Date: November 28, 2006 10:11:23 AM PST
To: dewayne () warpspeed com, "Dewayne-Net Technology List" <dewayne-
net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] re: Wi-Fi standards face patent threat

I did a little checking through and old grapevine.  CSIRO and/or
Radiata apparently did the right notifications with the IEEE standards
group at the proper time back then.  Which is, filing a statement
with the IEEE which commits to licensing on a "non discriminatory
basis" and for "reasonable terms".  This is required practice with
the IEEE for moving a draft to standard status.  (This could be the
evidence that was mentioned....[?])

Having said that.  My own personal guess is that companies here
in the U.S. decided to try to ignore the Auzzie patent holder with
respect to obtaining a license for a reasonable fee.

Therefore nothing sinister or a "threat". This is just normal business
of a known patent holder with known licensing terms whacking someone
else to pay attention.

Mark

At 12:50 AM -0800 11/21/06, Dewayne Hendricks wrote:
[Note:  This comment comes from reader Robert Berger.  DLH]

From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
Date: November 20, 2006 9:38:54 PM PST
To: dewayne () warpspeed com
Subject: Re: [Dewayne-Net] Wi-Fi standards face patent threat


On Nov 20, 2006, at 7:49 PM, Dewayne Hendricks wrote:

The judge in the case issued a summary judgment, which indicates
the court is wholly convinced by the evidence, to the point where
there are no questions of fact. In general, a summary judgment is
rare in patent disputes.

it would be nice to know why the Judge said that. It seems very
rare for this to happen. Does anyone know if this Judge is
particularly cluefull or not? According to the article its for some
basic OFDM tech, but that's all that mentions. Couldn't we get
CSIRO and WiLan to fight each other to their mutual death over OFDM?

By the way, I believe that CSIRO (the entity that is claiming
infringement) was the entity that spun out  the early 802.11a
chipmaker Radiata which was purchased by Cisco in 2002 or so. WiLan
has been going around suing people over OFDM since at least that
long ago.

Also like the following line in the original article not in the
snippet:

Furniss said he doesn't expect CSIRO to sue everyone using the
802.11a, 802.11g and eventually the 802.11n technology. In fact,
CSIRO is focusing only on obtaining licensing fees from equipment
makers, such as Netgear and Microsoft, and not chipmakers, such as
Broadcom, Intel or Atheros. He claims the chips themselves don't
infringe on the patents; it's only when the technology is used in a
specific device.
How could it not infringe in the chip but it does in devices that
use the chip if the "infringing" tech is baked into the chip only?
Sounds like a patent troll's approach to me...

Patents need significant regrooving. They have become so not what
the founding fathers had in mind when they hardwired them into the
constitution....







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