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Comment by NeutronBoy | Hacker News Reader

> potential patent troll

I must be confused. How are they a patent troll if they actually do the the R&D part of the patent? A patent troll would buy the filed patent and just spend money enforcing it to collect cash...

I am a bit biased because I'm Australian and fully support the CSIRO. They're a non-profit entity[0] - their mandate isn't to make money. The money they do collect from royalties is rolled back into their research.

[0] In that they don't produce a profit for stakeholders. They're a government agency though, not a registered charity.

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I'm a big fan of the CSIRO too. But I think it's fair to say that under the current government they've pushed towards a more commercialisation / applied science view of the world. For instance, NICTA (Australia's premier government funded Computer Science research... thingy) has been defunded and merged into CSIRO.

They now operate as 'Data61' on a semi-commercial basis. Again, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing: I'm actually working with some of the NICTA/Data61 guys on one of their projects, and they are doing a number of these across the APS. If anything, it's been great to unleash these guys on the APS, where IT expertise is sorely lacking. They seem to be very good at what they do (and have a heavy focus on applying machine-learning to real-world problems).

Their new CEO, Larry Marshall actually created a number of US startups centred on lasers/optics (sorry, don't know the proper term) and holds a number of patents in this area. I met the guy when he gave a presentation at my workplace, and this carbon-fibre work is very much in line with the strategy he outlined. He's a decent guy who, IMHO, has been given a pretty unfair run in the press (who have taken a number of his statements out of context and portrayed him as some kind of anti-science luddite). Incidentally, he reads PG's essays :)

I don't really have a point here, just providing some background information in case you find it interesting (and apologies if I sound like a bit of a cheerleader). This shift in CSIRO's focus might have been the one and only thing our idiot government has gotten right over two terms of government (or, at least, the one thing they didn't totally screw up).

EDIT: And just to concur, the assertion that CSIRO is a patent troll doesn't pass the laugh test.

> EDIT: And just to concur, the assertion that CSIRO is a patent troll doesn't pass the laugh test.

Most of the people everyone outside Australia who've heard of CSIRO at all know of them because of what is viewed as a shakedown of WiFi manufacturers. It seems more sad than funny.

It's a shame people have this view. They don't seem very interested in the actual facts of the matter either, judging by the reaction to the other post I made on this topic.

Oh well...

You "balanced out" an Arstechnica article with a really mediocre one from The Register. You expected a positive reaction?

The Arstechnica article was actually a series of two: the first harshly criticising the CSIRO and the second 'clarifying' the first because of the outcry it caused. I thought the Register article was highly relevant because it directly addressed some of the assertions made in the Arstechnica article.

I'm not asserting the Arstechnica article is wrong and the Register article is right. But it's an alternate view from what is, as far as I can tell, an unbiased observer. I'm sorry it doesn't line up with the views that you quite obviously hold, but that's just how life is sometimes. You might also wish to consider whether your dismissal of The Register's assertions is logical, as it basically amounts to:

P: I don't like A.

P: A is asserting X.

C: Therefore X is wrong.

I've read all these articles. The Register article didn't strike me as any less tabloidish than is standard for them.

Other than a vague assertion that that The Register article is 'tabloidish', what in the Register article do you think is untrue? They make pretty specific and easily falsifiable claims (as opposed to the Arstechnica articles), so it's really not that hard to point out where you think they're specifically wrong. Do you have anything of actual substance to add to this?

(none of the below has anything to do with CSIRO, really)

I haven't got the slightest idea why you view The Register's article as being of superior quality to Ars's, regardless of how you stand on the issues, since it's just a small, sarcastic ("Evil Aussie tax on Wi-Fi") attack on what the author views as the weakest parts of what Ars wrote. Even a blogger would put more effort in.

But it seems to me the Register adds a useful, but douchey ("Cisco was scammed!") elaboration on the role of Radiata, sidesteps the question of whether the amount CSIRO was asking was RAND (which is the whole point of everything), and makes some very pathetic attempts to appear balanced in the last two paragraphs. "The hyperbolic statements made by Australia’s science minister and various press should be challenged." But not in this article.

Sorry, but this is crappy writing not worthy of deeper consideration. At least Ars tried to write something.

edit: thanks for really putting the effort in with your reply!

So, no.

Well it's certainly been a laugh and a half.

I believe the contention in the WiFi case is whether CSIRO really did do the R&D actually used in WiFi, or if it just happened to get lucky with a patent. Of course, they presumably did vaguely do some sort of R&D in this space given they were awarded a patent themselves, rather than buying it off some other entity, like a patent troll would.

They invented the technology used for WiFi for radio astronomy, it is as legitimate an invention as it gets.

Considering how messed up the patent system can get, it's really confusing how this one instance is where they decide to get worked up about. At least CSIRO seems to do legitimate research in the area, and it is not hunting down small scale players to make them pay up for questionable patents. This is the really abusive part of current patent law, not which research org or corporation gets "blessed" by the patent office.

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