Another day, another Wi-Fi patent entanglement. Today the troll plaintiff suing practically the entire industry is Wi-LAN, whose two patents—"related to Wi-Fi and power consumption in DSL products"—are apparently violated by anyone making or selling anything from routers to notebooks. The suit, launched in the capital of patent infringement suits, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, targets Acer, Apple, Belkin, Best Buy, Broadcom, Buffalo, Circuity City, Dell, D-Link, Gateway, HP, Infineon, Intel, Lenovo, Marvell, Netgear, Sony, TI, Toshiba, Westell and 2Wire.
Fujitsu alone has been spared the lawsuit hammer because it caved and struck a deal over the summer to license Wi-LAN's whole patent portfolio—such transactions are why "patent holding" companies like Wi-LAN exist, not for anything productive. Be brave! Let loose the fury of your legal team to crush patent trolls into oblivion, since the patent office isn't doing much about it. The court system will ultimately thank you. [Reuters, Flickr]