CSIRO records $122 million surplus

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has managed to record a $122 million surplus for the 2008-09 financial year after nearly 10 years of financial distress.

The good result is due to a successful court battle in the US, which saw the CSIRO secure payments for the use of wireless technologies used in millions of commercial computing and telecommunications devices.

CSIRO chief executive Megan Clark said it asserted ownership of the 1996 patent after a legal dispute against some of the industry’s biggest companies, such as Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Nintendo.

In the agency’s annual report, which was tabled in Parliament yesterday, there is a 90% increase in the number of royalty payments. Intellectual property revenue jumped from $81 million last year to $230 million, with the organisation having budgeted for a $34 million deficit.

“A most significant achievement through this Group… has been the successful licensing of our wireless local area network (WLAN) technology to manufacturers of wirelessly-enabled devices. This technology is now used in almost every WLAN enabled device sold throughout the world,” Clark said in the report. “This year we reached a record 161 active licenses for our technologies and discoveries.”

The agency is also pursuing similar legal action against Sony and Acer, a spokesperson confirmed with ComputerWorld.com.

Additionally, the report shows staff redundancies have dropped by 50% from last year, with external investment from the private sector increasing from $94 million to over $128 million.

The agency’s expenses came in over budget by $57.8 million, which it said is due to the new salary and superannuation agreements negotiated between itself and the CSIRO staff association.

Clark also highlighted some of the agency’s achievements over the past year, including the commercialisation of a smart sensor network technology, which gathers environmental data and wirelessly sends it to a database.