ZDNet reports that the Australian government research body CSIRO will continue to press its Wi-Fi patent claims: CSIRO has a patent on certain aspect of networking that relate to OFDM, and have won a few court victories against Buffalo. They are being sued and suing a variety of firms over patent licensing fees. The IEEE wanted an assurance about CSIRO's intent as part of the process in moving forward with 802.11n. The IEEE doesn't like to move forward on patents in which there's intellectual property in dispute, depending on what the risk is in approving a standard that wouldn't be able to be built.
In this case, CSIRO has offered terms--you take your pick at whether tens of cents to dollars per device is reasonable or not; I don't have the context. But the lawsuits overshadow their terms. I've read their patents and other documents, and it's now in the realm of specialists, as their description might cover aspects of OFDM--part of 802.11a, g, and n, as well as mobile WiMax or 802.16e-2005--but within the niceties of patent law, only litigation will tell.
This articles provides a timeline of events. However, the first entry that "CSIRO lodges US patent for the invention of a wireless LAN" is vastly overstated. Their patent covers multipath issues in wireless networks, an important subset, but still a subset, of wireless LAN protocols.