The Australian government science body The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has won a multi-million-dollar legal settlement in the United States to license its patented technology that underpins the WiFi platform worldwide.

Agency boffins invented the wireless local area network (WLAN) technology that is the basis of the WiFi signal and patented the technology in the 1990s. It has been suing companies using it without a licence since 2005.Australian Minister for Science and Research Chris Evans said in a statement that it was an important battle to win.

"It was important that Australia protect its intellectual property, and that those major companies who are selling billions of devices pay for the technology that they were using," he said.

The invention came out of CSIRO's pioneering work in radio astronomy, with a team of its scientists cracking the problem of radio waves bouncing off surfaces indoors.It built a fast chip that could transmit a signal while reducing the echo, beating many of the major communications companies around the world that were trying to solve the same issue.