Short answers, pulled from the story.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission released parts of the ISM bands for unlicensed use in 1985. This regulatory decision allowed anyone to transmit data on these frequencies without obtaining a specific license provided they adhered to power limits.
Australian scientists led by John O'Sullivan developed a prototype test bed for wireless local area network technology in 1992. Australia lodged a patent for Wi-Fi in 1992, and the CSIRO received $200 million after a patent settlement with 14 technology companies in 2009.
The Wi-Fi Alliance formed as a trade association in 1999 to hold the Wi-Fi trademark and restrict use of the term Wi-Fi Certified to products that successfully complete interoperability certification testing. The organization consists of more than 800 companies from around the world who gain the right to mark products with the Wi-Fi logo upon membership.
The first version of the 802.11 protocol released in 1997 provided up to 2 megabit per second link speeds. It updated in 1999 with 802.11b to permit 11 megabit per second link speeds before newer generations utilized the 6 gigahertz SHF band for higher throughput.
Mysore became India's first Wi-Fi-enabled city in 2004 after a company called WiFiyNet set up hotspots covering the whole city and nearby villages. St. Cloud, Florida and Sunnyvale, California became the first U.S. cities to offer free Wi-Fi from MetroFi in 2005.