Aussie organisation collects over $184 million from 14 tech giants

AUSTRALIA'S Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has revealed it has made over AUS$200 million ($184 million, £113 million or €123 million) from out-of-court settlements in its patent battles with 14 of the world's largest technology companies.

However, CSIRO believes that there are many more companies that are using its technology and it wants to license them, too.

"We would urge companies that are currently selling devices that have 802.11 a,g or n to contact CSIRO and to seek a licence because we believe they are using our technology," said CSIRO executive director of commercial Nigel Poole.

He said various companies had approached the CSIRO voluntarily to license their technology and thus avoid court action.

In thanks for the settlements, CSIRO has given its scientific, commercial and legal teams its highest honour, the chairman's medal for research achievement.

In June 2007, CSIRO successfully demanded royalties from Japanese manufacturer Buffalo Technologies for patent infringement in its WiFi equipment.

It then went on to file patent infringement lawsuits against 3Com, Accton, Asus, Belkin, D-Link, Fujitsu, Marvell (manufacturer of Apple's Ipod), Nintendo, SMC and Toshiba.

HP, Apple, Intel, Dell, Microsoft and Netgear fought back by filing their own cases against CSIRO in attempts to have the organisation's patent invalidated.

As the patent cases went forward in Texas under US law, the Australian Government-funded research organisation struck agreements with some of the world's biggest technology players, including HP, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Asus and Fujitsu.

Nintendo, Toshiba, Netgear, Buffalo, D-Link, Belkin, SMC, Accton and 3Com also settled out of court. µ