A patent infringement suit over Bluetooth technologies has been filed against Panasonic/Matsushita, Samsung, and Nokia. The organization filing the suit, the Washington Research Foundation, markets technologies that are developed at the University of Washington in the USA. The suit targets companies that are selling Bluetooth products in the US that make use of CSR’s Bluetooth chipset.

CSR does not sell their products directly in the USA, which is why the Washington Research Foundation is targeting the companies that buy and use the CSR products that it believes infringe on a radio frequency receiver technology patent it owns.

If successful, this suit could spell potential doom for this currently freely available technology. Originally created by Ericsson engineer Jaap Haartsen, the specifications for the technology have long been available to Bluetooth product developers at no cost from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG).

Reuters quotes Haartsen as stating that other companies have tried in the past to claim rights over parts of the Bluetooth spec and have failed. It is too early to make such a determination in this case, though.

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