Tuesday, December 19, 2006

CSIRO wins transfer of ND Cal WiFi case to ED Texas

CSIRO won a transfer of a significant WiFi case to ED Texas, where it previously prevailed against Buffalo Technologies.

Courier-Mail-->In a David and Goliath fight, the Australian government research agency is battling a group of industry heavyweights including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Apple and Netgear in a patent case over its Wireless Local Area Network technology.

The CSIRO was granted a US patent for the technology in 1996, which has since been widely adopted by computer companies.

Last week a federal court in California agreed that the upcoming patent cases brought against CSIRO should be heard in Texas – by the same court that last month found in favour of the Australian agency against a company called Buffalo Technology.

**from a press release**

n its ruling, the California court [ND Cal] agreed with CSIRO that the Eastern District of Texas is the proper venue to decide on the declaratory judgment case because the Texas court is already familiar with the case and has ruled on the key issues.

"We are gratified by the Northern District's decision in this case and hope that it will set the groundwork for a final ruling in favor of our client," remarked Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP partner Daniel Furniss. "The Eastern District has already recognized the validity of CSIRO's patents and we are confident that we can effectively argue the applicability of those patents to Intel, Dell, Microsoft and others."

According to CSIRO, the Texas court's ruling in the Buffalo case will apply to all 802.11a and g wireless devices. The amount of patent damages in the Buffalo case, based on a "reasonable royalty," will likely be decided early next year.

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