Court Lifts Injunction On WiFi Devices In Patent Dispute

from the a-little-bit-of-good-news dept

Thu, Dec 11th 2008 8:28pm — Mike Masnick

We've been following the story of how CSIRO, an Australian gov't agency, has claimed a patent on WiFi for years. Last year, we were pretty surprised that a judge not only sided with CSIRO in a case against Buffalo Technology, but issued an injunction, barring the company from selling its WiFi equipment. This was despite the recent Supreme Court decision that said patent injunctions should only be issued in certain circumstances (in the past, it was quite common to issue injunctions). The case is now being reviewed, and the good news is that a court has at least temporarily lifted the injunction while the court reviews whether or not the patent is even valid. This case could have a huge impact on a series of other cases that CSIRO has filed against pretty much everyone offering WiFi equipment.

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Filed Under: injunction, patents, wifi
Companies: buffalo, csiro

5 Comments

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Ro, 12 Dec 2008 @ 1:36am

Australia is anti technology
This injunction shouldn't have been made in the first place. Attitudes towards technology seem so backwards in Australia. At every turn they try and hold back progress. I used to want to live there but I would be giving up too much having to take their capped internet limits.
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Les from aus, 14 Dec 2008 @ 6:21pm

*Sigh*
I live in australia and sometimes i dont want to be here. Luckily technology aside its a great place to live... and look at all the fun we get to have trying to work around our elected government just to get something decent/effective tech wise :P
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Wombat, 16 Dec 2008 @ 4:49am

What is wrong with defending a patent!
If they did invent it or a key component they have every right to claim ownership, that is how our systems works. Australian technology is not backward, Australians just bash their own like there is no tomorrow. Australian tech is actually sometimes more advanced, we are further away from everyone else so our network tech has to be better, we are often forced to use older tech for slightly longer so it get further developed... it may not always be "the latest", but it will be faster with lower latencies... just look at Netcomm, they get a hard wrap from people but if you have actually tried their high end products and set them up properly you will see they are easily the best, often first to market... and yet other larger mass producing companies get the credit as they copy and dump crap onto the market.
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neuhausen, 16 Dec 2008 @ 1:13pm

ddsdsd
This injunction shouldn't have been made in the first place.
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Go the Underdog from DownUnder!, 18 Dec 2008 @ 9:24pm

Inventor Rights!!
If it weren't for CSIRO you guys wouldn't even be enjoying wireless! If the research funding and years of hard yakka are put in by someone they deserve both the recognition and royalties from the others who jump on the bandwagon and don't want to pay anything! How would you feel if someone stole your ideas and passed it off as their own?!?!?!
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