Hi, Bernard - I do not intend to challenge you, or petere. There is room for all points of view on this matter, and we will not resolve it here. As petere pointed out a year ago, that is what courts are for.
And I am, at best, a not-very-good student of these matters.
The upcoming litigation will probably take years to resolve, and there will be significant time and effort devoted to interpretation, and resolution of semantic questions. There will be the usual parade of expert witnesses, each with a view opposite to his or her predecessor.
On the patent, the question to me, is: did anyone patent a method for the process of obtaining superior OFDM transmission by setting up channels a certain way, analyzing them a certain way, pre-whitening (distorting) them in a certain way, transmitting and receiving in a certain way, in a radio network? Is that patent, incorporating several aspects of prior art, a new process, not obvious to the practitioner skilled in the art?
The Doctrine of Equivalents, or its Canadian counterpart, will be much at play, when the merit of the patent is at question.
But in the current context, as I understand it, that is not the question before the court. The question is patent infringement, in Canadian law.
It is a fact that Wi-LAN has a patent, and claims its IP is necessary to implement HiperLAN2 and 802.11a. Radiata makes the same claim.
The issue, in this case, is not the validity of the patent. The issue is infringement of a patent that most definitely exists.
I might point out that the Radiata claim appears to validate the right of Wi-LAN to make the identical claim, by its mere existence.
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Questions of patent worthiness are separable from discussions of the larger forces at play here. At some point in this bigger conflict, the whistle will blow, and the game will be over. The players will line up and shake hands; a month later, they'll be playing golf together, and buying each other beer.
But before then, there'll be blood on the ice.
Regards,
Jim |
