Re: Open hardware wireless cards

Alan Cox
2005-01-10T00:07:04Z

On Sul, 2005-01-09 at 09:59, Norbert van Nobelen wrote:
> There are several independent designs in the market for these chipsets, but as
> far as I know the patents only govern the complete chipset, thus the contents
> of the chipset is not to be worried about.
> The other patent issue is the 802.11 standard itself. Is that patent free?
> (IE: That would be a stupid patent)

There are a set of patents involved for the hardware but when you buy
the chipsets you normally buy the chipsets and all the attached rights
to use, just like when you buy a pentium IV you don't then go and get a
set of patent licenses from amd, intel. ibm and so on.

To sell the product you then also need to meet FCC and/or CE mark
testing as appropriate for your target market. Typically thats upwards
of $10K

Alan