There are four patents in the suit:
US7116710
US7421032
US7916781
US8284833
They get REALLY technical, but they all involve the circumvention of the "Shannon Limit"
In other words, given a certain amount of frequency space & transmit power, the Shannon Limit is the maximum data rate through that channel.
In a channel there is a point at which I am transmitting so much energy that the receiver gets errors & asks for retransmission, dropping throughput dramatically.
The SL defines that point so I can transmit UP TO that limit and maximize throughput.
In the past, we went around the SL by binding multiple channels to increase throughput, but there are a limited number of channels & the sheer number of WiFi devices made that approach non-sustainable.
Their research found news ways of coding, decoding, code conversion and error detection/correction that would allow throughput to exceed the Shannon Limit for a given channel.
These patents were filed in 2001/2006/2008/2011, & granted in 2006/2008/2011/2012
... CalTech is NOT one of those entities.
Their work was directly used in several wireless technologies (802.11n & ac) without ever being credited or compensated.
Broadcom & Apple (& others) made BILLIONS off of their work.
The researcher gets paid for their work.
... good guys win.
theverge.com/2020/1/29/2111…