Tuesday, November 6, 2007

D-Link plays down impact of Wi-LAN patent lawsuit

Amanda Liang and Irene Chen, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Monday 5 November 2007]

Ottawa-based Wi-LAN's patent infringement lawsuit against D-Link will have no significant impact on D-Link's operations, according to D-Link CFO AP Chen.

Last week, Wi-LAN initiated litigation against 22 technology companies, including Taiwan-based Acer and D-Link, claiming that the companies have infringed Wi-LAN patents related to Wi-Fi and power consumption in DSL products, according to a Reuters report.

Chen said that D-Link's legal representatives have begun looking into the case, while Acer has not yet made any comments regarding the lawsuit at the time of publication.

Wi-LAN claims that it has a portfolio of more than 280 issued or pending patents which, according to sources at Taiwan network-equipment makers, are related to OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) technology, from which the 802.11g, 802.11n and WiMAX standards are derived.

With the WiMAX market heating up, Wi-LAN may target WiMAX makers for its next round of litigation, noted the sources.

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