Virgin.net reports today that a Texas federal court has determined that Australia's CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) holds a patent that covers key wireless technology. The judgement is part of a dispute between CSIRO and Buffalo Technology that's been going on for almost two years.

"In his summary judgment, Judge Leonard Davis held that Buffalo's 802.11g devices unquestionably violated CSIRO's patent rights," the article states. "A summary judgement indicates that the court is wholly convinced by the evidence, to the point where there are no questions of fact. A summary judgement is very rare in patent disputes."

The article suggests the impact could be extremely broad, affecting products like Intel-powered laptops from Dell and HP, access points and network cards from netgear, and Microsoft's Xbox and Zune, among many others.

The Age's Asher Moses says the win "could lead to CSIRO reaping massive royalties on every WLAN product produced."

More here from m-net ... here from SPOnG ... and here from Bloomberg.