from the department of "the patent trolls strike again..."

From Jeremy Pollard, the Crazy Canuckian comes this interesting tidbit: The intellectual property arm of the Washington state universities has sued Nokia, Samsung, and others for making bluetooth enabled products. This, even though the first bluetooth devices were made and sold in 1998, and the standard was adopted in 1998, and the patent wasn't even applied for until 2003. The legal action comes as a surprise to some members of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), which was created to control and protect the technology behind the standard. The more than 6,000 companies that belong to the Bluetooth SIG agree to license their relevant patents to other members without cost, said Anders Edlund, marketing director for the Bluetooth SIG. The group also has done legal investigations to ensure that companies can build Bluetooth products without infringing on patents. "It seems to have worked so far so this [lawsuit] was kind of a surprise," he said. Read the rest of the article from InfoWorld here. This clearly has implications for all standards-based activities. Take heed, SP100 and friends.