From David Berlind over on ZDNET:

Judge Leonard Davis ruled that a patent granted in 1996 to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, is valid. The patent describes the implementation of several aspects of the 802.11a and 802.11g wireless standards developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The court also ruled that Buffalo Technology, a small maker of Wi-Fi routing gear, had violated this patent….

…..More than 100 companies could end up paying royalties to CSIRO for use of the technology, claimed Daniel J. Furniss, a partner at Townsend and Townsend and Crew, the law firm representing CSIRO.

I know people who know people at CSIRO. I’ll try and hook up someone for the show in the immediate future to get to the bottom of this. It seems that not only did CSIRO invent insect repellant, gene splicing and myxomatosis, they also invented wifi. Hot damn. Maybe they can explain why I can’t get my modded xbox to talk to my new netgear router and therefore have to waste lots of blank dvds to get the latest episodes of Weeds, Heroes and Studio 60 onto it.