When CSIRO pursued a strategy to profit from an invention that is core to every wireless device, some of the world's biggest companies had to take notice

It's the little bit of magic that happens when we check emails on our laptops at a wi-fi cafe, or log on to the internet through our iPhone; we barely give it a thought. But behind it is a saga that may become Australia's biggest science commercialisation ever, worth more than $200 million this year alone. Yet CSIRO has not - until now - talked publicly about its massive US patent litigation settlement against some of the world's tech giants. Microsoft? Yep. Intel? Check. Plus HP, Dell, Fujitsu and Nintendo, just to name some of the 14 multinationals that faced off against Australia's major science research organisation in a packed Texas courtroom in April. The battle has taken five years of intense planning and litigation tactics and it's not over yet, with fresh suits filed last month against Sony, Acer and Lenovo.