Patent Law

Spread Spectrum

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

Ottawa-based Wi-LAN, holding spread spectrum patents 5,282,222 and RE37,802, thinks it has a lock on wireless standards 802.11 and CDMA2000. Wi-LAN has over 25 companies under the gun, including Apple, Sony, HP, and Intel. Earlier this week Wi-LAN stuck it to a fellow Canadian company, everybody's favorite wireless patent piñata, Research in Motion (RIM), as well as Motorola and UTStarcom.

The latest suit was filed in the Eastern District of Texas.

Tiny Wi-LAN, with a stock market valuation of $164 million, is fattening its calf with an enforcement campaign that has already found feed. Quite a few small Chinese and Korean companies have taken licenses.

Standards committees, such as (most especially) IEEE, have been negligent in failing to investigate the patent repercussions of adopting particular technologies as part of their standards. Only recently has IEEE started to have its participants in standard-setting committees show their patent cards. IEEE has yet to adopt careful vetting with regard to inadvertently adopting patented standards.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on June 21, 2008 (boomark / email).