Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) holds a number of key patents that happened to be used in the upcoming 802.11n standard. Because CSIRO isn't providing a Letter of Assurance that they won't sue people who those patents, the IEEE is refusing to ratify the standard, which is already in use by vendors in a draft form-a form that appears to be working fairly well.

If you read through the various articles and comments on the matter, CSIRO apparently holds a number of patents already in use with the existing 802.11g and 802.11b WiFi standards. 802.11b has been a standard December of 1999 and CSIRO is just now getting around to asserting their patent rights on it? Sure, they may be legally entitled to it, but that just seems so patent trollish to me.

Via Slashdot