Cisco And Wi-Lan Settle Patent Differences... Leave Everyone Else Confused

from the yeah,-that'll-help-nothing dept

Mon, Dec 5th 2005 6:08pm — Mike Masnick

Wi-LAN is the Canadian company who in the past has suddenly declared that it owns patents on important pieces of both WiFi and WiMax -- and sued Cisco in the summer of 2004. The fight over these patents was important, because if Cisco gave in, then Wi-LAN could basically set up a tollbooth for both WiFi and WiMax and start getting a piece of everything. Not much has been said in the last year and a half, but today the news comes out that the two sides have settled all their legal disputes, with Cisco buying some, but not all, of Wi-LAN's patents. That's about it in the way of details, meaning that absolutely nothing else is cleared up, and we can expect more lawsuits and more delays and problems for the technology as it needs to fight through this issue. Yup, that's "innovation" at work, according to many folks.

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carotids, 5 Dec 2005 @ 8:50pm

patents...
I had a patient the other day who was a patent thinker for IBM. All he does is think about and review patents for IBM all day. "No reason to create it, just patent it" was his quote to me.
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eternalsamarai, 6 Dec 2005 @ 5:18pm

Wi-lan makes Cisco Do the Right Thing
Cisco has settled and will pay Wi-lan for past and future royalties for its OFDM patents . Both WIMAX and 802.11a/g variants. This is a huge event.

Wilan has been a huge innovator and inventor in OFDM , It is the only rightful patent owner to WI-MAX patents

My suggestion to anyone is to do your research it is unbelievable how Glib some of these analysts have been. they havent the slightest clue how this OFDM market has evolved and the major role WI-lan has "played" since the beginning.
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John, 6 Dec 2005 @ 7:10pm

Re: Wi-lan makes Cisco Do the Right Thing
Yes, and we're sure you don't work for them or anything... Wi-LAN's role in all of this has been GREATLY overstated. Not only that, but they sat back and waited for things like Wi-Fi to become a standard before suddenly suing. It was obnoxious opportunism.
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canuck, 7 Dec 2005 @ 1:07am

Re: Wi-lan makes Cisco Do the Right Thing
For a good overview of cisco vs wi-lan, check out this article...
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1617679,00.asp
sort of reminds me of RIM vs. NTP, however, at least Wi-LAN has been selling real physical products for the last 10 years - I saw demos of their earlier generation wi-max products; huge heat sinks on those units!
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