The CSIRO is now one step closer in its court case against IT giants such as Intel and Microsoft over royalties for wireless LAN technology.
The US Federal court in California has agreed with CSIRO that the cases be moved to Texas, where the judge is already familiar with the case and the related issues.
This is a small, yet important victory for CSIRO as earlier this year, Judge Davis of the Texas Court ruled in favour of CSIRO in its case against Buffalo Technology. CSIRO alleged that Buffalo’s 802.11a and 802.11g wireless devices infringe its US Patent which covers elements of this wireless technology that is now an industry standard.
Last year, Intel, Dell, Microsoft, HP and Netgear sued CSIRO in Federal District Court in San Francisco seeking a declaratory judgment that its 1996 patent covering 802.11a and g technology was invalid and not infringed.
CSIRO eventually filed counter-claims against the companies and moved to transfer the cases from California to Texas.
If CSIRO wins in the cases against the five IT giants, the companies may lose a bundle in royalties, considering that Intel is a major supplier of 802.11a and g chipsets, Dell and HP are major sellers of laptops (which come with WLAN built-in), Netgear makes wireless cards and access points and of course Microsoft offers wireless capability in Xbox and 802.11g built-in in its new MP3 player, Zune.
