5 ms·

How does licensing work with software defined Wi-Fi? As I understand it, Australia holds many Wi-Fi patents and most of the money from radios goes into their Un

How does licensing work with software defined Wi-Fi? As I understand it, Australia holds many Wi-Fi patents and most of the money from radios goes into their University system. Would SDR based implementations be in violation of those patents? What if someone made a hardware version?

dayofthedaleks 6y ago
I can’t speak to patent encumbrance on anything as recent as 802.11ac, but the Australian CSIRO patents began expiring in 2013 and have probably all aged out by now.
beervirus 6y ago
Depends how the patent claims are drafted. But there's no reason to think that the software implementation would be immune to an allegation of infringement.
shakna 6y ago
Some of those patents have expired, so it would take a lot of research to be certain. A hardware implementation is likely to be patent-infringing. The SDR implementation is unlikely to be patent-infringing, as Australia does not generally allow software patents. [0] Software implementations of existing hardware are generally not considered to be patent-infringing under the current interpretations of law. However! The SDR implementation is still likely to be copyright-infringing, as Australia does have copyright laws that are rather vague and far reaching, and Australians are not granted the right to give up copyright. [0] Software patents can be granted, but they require the idea "improve the computer" rather than "merely requires generic computer implementation". Which is a higher hurdle than people expect, and has led to IBM, Microsoft and others losing and failing to gain software patents in Australia.
- wmf 6y ago
  OpenOFDM looks like Verilog running on an FPGA; is that "software"?
  - shakna 6y ago
    So far as I'm aware, that question has yet to be tested in an Australian court. As Australia operates under rules that translate to "reasonable interpretation", rather than strict definitions, the answer to your question is "Maybe".
- mkj 6y ago
  Do you have some more details how it would be copyright infringing? I can't see what part of an implementation would be direct copied work, unless it's byte sequences etc.
  - shakna 6y ago
    This is a very, very complex question. To start of with, the belief that only plagiarised work can be copyright infringing is incorrect, at least when it comes to Australia. A lot of reverse-engineering work is not done inside Australian borders, because the current interpretations of copyright law aren't favourable (as well as some other related laws). For example, if there exists a proprietary protocol, then the protocol itself may fall under copyright, and simply making a tool that speaks to that protocol may be considered infringing. This is because our copyright laws, or rather the interpretations of them, speak to the 'substance' of the tool being copyrighted, rather than the work itself. (And yes - copying a painting copies the 'substance' and can run afoul of our insane copyright regulations. Depending on how much the original artist cares.) As I said before, vague and far-reaching. And the courts have never been consistent in the way they hand down their case-by-case judgements. Australia is not well known for intelligent tech laws. Iterating public IDs can be considered hacking, forcing a secret backdoor isn't considered a systemic security weakness, etc.

dayofthedaleks 6y ago

I can’t speak to patent encumbrance on anything as recent as 802.11ac, but the Australian CSIRO patents began expiring in 2013 and have probably all aged out by now.

beervirus 6y ago

Depends how the patent claims are drafted. But there's no reason to think that the software implementation would be immune to an allegation of infringement.

shakna 6y ago

Some of those patents have expired, so it would take a lot of research to be certain. A hardware implementation is likely to be patent-infringing. The SDR implementation is unlikely to be patent-infringing, as Australia does not generally allow software patents. [0] Software implementations of existing hardware are generally not considered to be patent-infringing under the current interpretations of law. However! The SDR implementation is still likely to be copyright-infringing, as Australia does have copyright laws that are rather vague and far reaching, and Australians are not granted the right to give up copyright. [0] Software patents can be granted, but they require the idea "improve the computer" rather than "merely requires generic computer implementation". Which is a higher hurdle than people expect, and has led to IBM, Microsoft and others losing and failing to gain software patents in Australia.

wmf 6y ago
OpenOFDM looks like Verilog running on an FPGA; is that "software"?
- shakna 6y ago
  So far as I'm aware, that question has yet to be tested in an Australian court. As Australia operates under rules that translate to "reasonable interpretation", rather than strict definitions, the answer to your question is "Maybe".
mkj 6y ago
Do you have some more details how it would be copyright infringing? I can't see what part of an implementation would be direct copied work, unless it's byte sequences etc.
- shakna 6y ago
  This is a very, very complex question. To start of with, the belief that only plagiarised work can be copyright infringing is incorrect, at least when it comes to Australia. A lot of reverse-engineering work is not done inside Australian borders, because the current interpretations of copyright law aren't favourable (as well as some other related laws). For example, if there exists a proprietary protocol, then the protocol itself may fall under copyright, and simply making a tool that speaks to that protocol may be considered infringing. This is because our copyright laws, or rather the interpretations of them, speak to the 'substance' of the tool being copyrighted, rather than the work itself. (And yes - copying a painting copies the 'substance' and can run afoul of our insane copyright regulations. Depending on how much the original artist cares.) As I said before, vague and far-reaching. And the courts have never been consistent in the way they hand down their case-by-case judgements. Australia is not well known for intelligent tech laws. Iterating public IDs can be considered hacking, forcing a secret backdoor isn't considered a systemic security weakness, etc.