Acacia: Are they completely full of shit? - GoFuckYourself.com

stocktrader23 · 07-29-2003, 03:19 AM

I really hate to start a new Acacia thread but I had a few things on my mind about it and another thread made me decide to post this.

Here is that thread for reference.

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...hreadid=158077

First of all thoughts about the above thread. I haven't received a packet so I haven't had a chance to go over anything that some of you are looking at. However I wanted to throw this comment out there for further discussion and maybe somebody that has a packet can clear this up.

The other thread basically says that Acacia does have a patent related to streaming video but that patent is for 1 particular type. Other theories have been that Acacia is just bullying people into signing hoping they won't decide to fight. Also, others have stated that once you sign the contract they send you it is binding regardless of what happens with the patent suit that is pending between Acacia and IMPA.

If this is true wouldn't the people that already signed a contract stating they are going to be paying Acacia a percentage of their earnings have to continue to do so even if Acacia loses and the patent is overturned? If this is a posibility Acacia may just be using a scare tactic to get as many companies as possible to enter into an agreement with them. Then if their patent is overturned they tell the companies that signed that they must continue to pay because they have entered into a binding contract? Acacia may have known all along that they don't have a chance of keeping the patent and are just trying to get as many people to sign a contract with them as they can before it's overturned in court.

Maybe someone here has a copy of the contract that could clarify this? However, I imagine the contract states that you can't share the information with anyone else.

Another thing that strikes me funny is that Acacia wants a percentage of your gross income regardless of what percentage of your business uses the software/idea in question. For arguements sake lets say Acacia has a valid patent and every right to request money from people streaming video. What if I have a site that is 98% text and pictures and 2% video? Acacia is entitled to 2% of my entire operation? I only make approximately 2% of my income from video so I would be in essence paying 100% of the gross from video? Even with a valid patent I doubt this would be legal.

To me this sounds too much like a gym membership. Once you sign you are royally fucked no matter what the outcome with lawsuit to overturn the patent because you entered into a binding contract. The fact that Acacia's swag is getting more threatening looks like an indicator they are trying to scare as many people into signing as they can before the inevitable happens. If they get a couple million a year in contracts signed and then the patent is overturned this could be what they planned all along.

Like I said, I haven't had contact with them so I could be way off base here. Does anybody that has received the material and/or a contract want to tell me if I'm going in the wrong direction with this?

Hell I could send every webmaster on here a letter demanding payment for using a text link and threaten to sue if they don't pay me. Anybody can sue for any reason, that doesn't mean I would win. However, if you signed a contract with me ahead of time giving me the right to a percentage of your business income you would be held liable in court.

Anyhow, these are just a few thoughts I've had since this whole thing started. Flame on.

funkmaster · 07-29-2003, 03:24 AM

... your sig doesn´t load, but I guess I have doubleclick in my hosts file ...

Mr.Fiction · 07-29-2003, 03:29 AM

Acacia will not be able to get 25% of your income if you don't get most of your income from something related to their bogus patent. That is just them dreaming. You are better off dealing with a court and having the court set the amount of money they will get. Also, there is almost no way a court is going to give Acacia access to your books.

Those are just scare tactics. As long as you are willing to fight, even if Acacia keeps the patents, which very few people think they will, you will still get a better deal by fighting them in court.

The people who have already signed are either stupid or they negotiated a much better deal so that Acacia can issue a press release saying they made some deals and try to keep their stock price up.

This link has been posted many times on GFY, it is the actual package that they send to people:
http://www.afrochicks.com/info/acacia/index.shtml

stocktrader23 · 07-29-2003, 03:49 AM

I also found the following article regarding patents to be very interesting.

http://www.chipcenter.com/eexpert/be...fman051.html#4

Especially this part:

"While both [pioneering inventions or technological improvements] rely to some extent on prior discoveries, pioneering inventions and technological improvements differ dramatically in their frequency. The former are relatively uncommon by their nature, which relies on unprecedented, breakthrough discoveries. It is only the rare invention that strikes out in a sufficiently uncharted direction to qualify as a "wholly novel device." Thus, progress largely takes the form of technological improvements. "

Acacia claims they have a pioneering patent on DMT (streaming media). The article mentioned above states that a pioneering patent is a rarity and relies on "unprecendented, breakthrough discoveries". So were people streaming digital media before 1991?

GFED · 07-29-2003, 03:54 AM

IMO everything has always been streamed... ever since watching ansi movies on 300 baud modems... does their streaming patent only cover those streams with control panels?

Mr.Fiction · 07-29-2003, 03:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by stocktrader23

Acacia claims they have a pioneering patent on DMT (streaming media). The article mentioned above states that a pioneering patent is a rarity and relies on "unprecendented, breakthrough discoveries". So were people streaming digital media before 1991?

According to at least one of the articles I read, they said there were confrences in the 80's where people talked about the digital streaming they had already done, so it was not (according to what I have read) an invention at all. They simple were the first to patent something that people had been talking about and using for years.

Here is a quote from one article:

"At network specific conferences and journals in the 1980s, university and corporate groups disclosed their activities in sending compressed multimedia data out over networks."

http://www.chillingeffects.org/ecom/...?ResourceID=72

stocktrader23 · 07-29-2003, 03:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mr.Fiction

According to at least one of the articles I read, they said there were confrences in the 80's where people talked about the digital streaming they had already done, so it was not (according to what I have read) an invention at all. They simple were the first to patent something that people had been talking about and using for years.

Here is a quote from one article:

"At network specific conferences and journals in the 1980s, university and corporate groups disclosed their activities in sending compressed multimedia data out over networks."

http://www.chillingeffects.org/ecom/...?ResourceID=72

I was positive digital media had been streamed long before 1991 but I couldn't find any resources on it. I'm very curious to see where the fight with Acacia leads. If their patent is overturned I would imagine they will be sued into bankruptcy for their strong arm tactics. I've checked a few sources and it seems nearly impossible that Acacia would have a valid pioneering patent on what they claim.

Mr.Fiction · 07-29-2003, 04:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by stocktrader23

I was positive digital media had been streamed long before 1991 but I couldn't find any resources on it. I'm very curious to see where the fight with Acacia leads. If their patent is overturned I would imagine they will be sued into bankruptcy for their strong arm tactics. I've checked a few sources and it seems nearly impossible that Acacia would have a valid pioneering patent on what they claim.

If you can find specific prior art, you should contact Homegrown about it, don't post it here. The more people that are out looking for specific documentation of the existence of streaming before Acacia's patents, the better it will be for the case against them.

Tipsy · 07-29-2003, 04:05 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by stocktrader23

I was positive digital media had been streamed long before 1991 but I couldn't find any resources on it. I'm very curious to see where the fight with Acacia leads. If their patent is overturned I would imagine they will be sued into bankruptcy for their strong arm tactics. I've checked a few sources and it seems nearly impossible that Acacia would have a valid pioneering patent on what they claim.

That's the crux of it. Of course to prove that with any success in court costs a LOT of money. My personal opinion is that the last thing they expected was people fighting them with GOOD lawyers and the money to see it to the end. I would be very surprised if Acacia were not now very, very scared.

Scootermuze · 07-29-2003, 04:06 AM

Even if these guys were totally correct .. and did deserve to be paid.. the document they sent was a proposal at this point and not a binding contract until signed..

As with any proposal, you can go through it, pick the things you agree to, then eliminate the rest..

Type up your counter proposal, sign it , and return it..

Remove everything not directly related to the patent, determine what percentage of your business is pertinent, and word your proposal to agree to their percentage, but based only on the percentage of your business that applies.

I have a feeling that they would accept it in that there is probably not a judge in the country that would make you put back the unrelated items.. such as providing information about other individuals, agreeing to pay for something that they're not entitled to, etc..

Further, if the contract, as is, should be tested in the courts, as a whole agreement, then if they strike even one item, the entire contract could be shot down.

GFED · 07-29-2003, 04:08 AM

I'm not exactly sure what kind of prior art we need... I remember having short video clips on my C64... only a few secs at most... maybe Samantha Fox and some Playboy vids...

I also remember having a digitized audio of "You Talk Too Much" (that the only words of the song) and it took up a whole floppy.

Also, what about demos? Some groups in the scene released demos with video in them...

Please let me know... I've got a boxes of C64 stuff and Amiga stuff I can go through...

AssFairy · 07-29-2003, 04:14 AM

Kind of a bit off the wall here as far as streaming movies are concerned but it may well be sort of relevant in a strange way and I haven't seen anybody else mention this so here goes, does anybody remember some of the very old games on the cbm64 (and other old machines) that would load a game and at the same time they would slowly display a picture on the screen?, well they went on to perfect this technique of loading games and streaming movies off the tape at the same time.

I can't for the life of me remember what they called that type of loader but I remember everybody jaw drop when they saw the impossible for the first time.

GFED · 07-29-2003, 04:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by AssFairy
Kind of a bit off the wall here as far as streaming movies are concerned but it may well be sort of relevant in a strange way and I haven't seen anybody else mention this so here goes, does anybody remember some of the very old games on the cbm64 (and other old machines) that would load a game and at the same time they would slowly display a picture on the screen?, well they went on to perfect this technique of loading games and streaming movies off the tape at the same time.

I can't for the life of me remember what they called that type of loader but I remember everybody jaw drop when they saw the impossible for the first time.

Hmmm... I remember Isepic... that would take a game, complete disk and compress it into one file... and it had a kickass loader that was quick...

also there was a group... Scoopex I think that released a bootblock loader that was very quick and would make your harddrive sound like it was gonna explode...

Do you remember what game had this loader?

Dravyk · 07-29-2003, 04:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mr.Fiction
This link has been posted many times on GFY, it is the actual package that they send to people:
http://www.afrochicks.com/info/acacia/index.shtml

Appreciate the link.

Boy, things have changed. In the old days when people used to scoop up a bunch of dog shit and wrap it up in a pretty package, they would just set it on fire, ring the doorbell and run.

Tipsy · 07-29-2003, 05:39 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dravyk
Appreciate the link.

Boy, things have changed. In the old days when people used to scoop up a bunch of dog shit and wrap it up in a pretty package, they would just set it on fire, ring the doorbell and run.

If you like metaphors that's probably not too far away from what will happen when all this is finally played out.

rogerbo · 07-29-2003, 06:01 AM

The point is to find this Documents of prior Art on Universitys Like Berkley or MIT
http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~...harles_N=.html

Charles N. Lo, Henri E. Tohme, Richard S. Wolff: A Hybrid Architecture for Analog Video Broadcast and B-ISDN Services in Customer Premises Networks. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications 8(7): 1327-1339 (1990)

So there IS some docs the problem is only to find them.

Theo · 07-29-2003, 06:10 AM

acacia stock volume is nothing

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=actg&d=1d

Tipsy · 07-29-2003, 06:14 AM

http://biz.yahoo.com/cc/7/32047.html

Seems to say they'll have an audio link at 4.30 eastern time to the report for those interested.

07-29-2003, 03:19 AM	#1
stocktrader23 Let's do some business. Industry Role: Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: The dirty south. Posts: 18,781	Acacia: Are they completely full of shit? I really hate to start a new Acacia thread but I had a few things on my mind about it and another thread made me decide to post this. Here is that thread for reference. http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...hreadid=158077 First of all thoughts about the above thread. I haven't received a packet so I haven't had a chance to go over anything that some of you are looking at. However I wanted to throw this comment out there for further discussion and maybe somebody that has a packet can clear this up. The other thread basically says that Acacia does have a patent related to streaming video but that patent is for 1 particular type. Other theories have been that Acacia is just bullying people into signing hoping they won't decide to fight. Also, others have stated that once you sign the contract they send you it is binding regardless of what happens with the patent suit that is pending between Acacia and IMPA. If this is true wouldn't the people that already signed a contract stating they are going to be paying Acacia a percentage of their earnings have to continue to do so even if Acacia loses and the patent is overturned? If this is a posibility Acacia may just be using a scare tactic to get as many companies as possible to enter into an agreement with them. Then if their patent is overturned they tell the companies that signed that they must continue to pay because they have entered into a binding contract? Acacia may have known all along that they don't have a chance of keeping the patent and are just trying to get as many people to sign a contract with them as they can before it's overturned in court. Maybe someone here has a copy of the contract that could clarify this? However, I imagine the contract states that you can't share the information with anyone else. Another thing that strikes me funny is that Acacia wants a percentage of your gross income regardless of what percentage of your business uses the software/idea in question. For arguements sake lets say Acacia has a valid patent and every right to request money from people streaming video. What if I have a site that is 98% text and pictures and 2% video? Acacia is entitled to 2% of my entire operation? I only make approximately 2% of my income from video so I would be in essence paying 100% of the gross from video? Even with a valid patent I doubt this would be legal. To me this sounds too much like a gym membership. Once you sign you are royally fucked no matter what the outcome with lawsuit to overturn the patent because you entered into a binding contract. The fact that Acacia's swag is getting more threatening looks like an indicator they are trying to scare as many people into signing as they can before the inevitable happens. If they get a couple million a year in contracts signed and then the patent is overturned this could be what they planned all along. Like I said, I haven't had contact with them so I could be way off base here. Does anybody that has received the material and/or a contract want to tell me if I'm going in the wrong direction with this? Hell I could send every webmaster on here a letter demanding payment for using a text link and threaten to sue if they don't pay me. Anybody can sue for any reason, that doesn't mean I would win. However, if you signed a contract with me ahead of time giving me the right to a percentage of your business income you would be held liable in court. Anyhow, these are just a few thoughts I've had since this whole thing started. Flame on. __________________ Hands Free Adult - Join Once, Earn For Life "I try to make a habit of bouncing my eyes up to the face of a beautiful woman, and often repeat “not mine” in my head or even verbally. She’s not mine. God has her set aside. She’s not mine. She’s His little girl, and she needs me to fight for her by keeping my eyes where they should be."

07-29-2003, 03:29 AM	#3
Mr.Fiction Confirmed User Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Free Speech Land Posts: 9,484	Acacia will not be able to get 25% of your income if you don't get most of your income from something related to their bogus patent. That is just them dreaming. You are better off dealing with a court and having the court set the amount of money they will get. Also, there is almost no way a court is going to give Acacia access to your books. Those are just scare tactics. As long as you are willing to fight, even if Acacia keeps the patents, which very few people think they will, you will still get a better deal by fighting them in court. The people who have already signed are either stupid or they negotiated a much better deal so that Acacia can issue a press release saying they made some deals and try to keep their stock price up. This link has been posted many times on GFY, it is the actual package that they send to people: http://www.afrochicks.com/info/acacia/index.shtml __________________ Don't be lazy, protect free speech: ACLU \| Free Speech Coalition \| EFF \| IMPA

07-29-2003, 03:54 AM	#5
GFED Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 8,098	IMO everything has always been streamed... ever since watching ansi movies on 300 baud modems... does their streaming patent only cover those streams with control panels? __________________ https://www.flow.page/savethechildren

07-29-2003, 04:08 AM	#11
GFED Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 8,098	I'm not exactly sure what kind of prior art we need... I remember having short video clips on my C64... only a few secs at most... maybe Samantha Fox and some Playboy vids... I also remember having a digitized audio of "You Talk Too Much" (that the only words of the song) and it took up a whole floppy. Also, what about demos? Some groups in the scene released demos with video in them... Please let me know... I've got a boxes of C64 stuff and Amiga stuff I can go through... __________________ https://www.flow.page/savethechildren

07-29-2003, 04:14 AM	#12
AssFairy Confirmed User Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: AssTown Posts: 674	Kind of a bit off the wall here as far as streaming movies are concerned but it may well be sort of relevant in a strange way and I haven't seen anybody else mention this so here goes, does anybody remember some of the very old games on the cbm64 (and other old machines) that would load a game and at the same time they would slowly display a picture on the screen?, well they went on to perfect this technique of loading games and streaming movies off the tape at the same time. I can't for the life of me remember what they called that type of loader but I remember everybody jaw drop when they saw the impossible for the first time. __________________ I sale lube

07-29-2003, 03:24 AM	#2
funkmaster So Fucking Banned Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: shell beach Posts: 7,938	... your sig doesn´t load, but I guess I have doubleclick in my hosts file ...

07-29-2003, 03:49 AM	#4
stocktrader23 Let's do some business. Industry Role: Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: The dirty south. Posts: 18,781	I also found the following article regarding patents to be very interesting. http://www.chipcenter.com/eexpert/be...fman051.html#4 Especially this part: "While both [pioneering inventions or technological improvements] rely to some extent on prior discoveries, pioneering inventions and technological improvements differ dramatically in their frequency. The former are relatively uncommon by their nature, which relies on unprecedented, breakthrough discoveries. It is only the rare invention that strikes out in a sufficiently uncharted direction to qualify as a "wholly novel device." Thus, progress largely takes the form of technological improvements. " Acacia claims they have a pioneering patent on DMT (streaming media). The article mentioned above states that a pioneering patent is a rarity and relies on "unprecendented, breakthrough discoveries". So were people streaming digital media before 1991? __________________ Hands Free Adult - Join Once, Earn For Life "I try to make a habit of bouncing my eyes up to the face of a beautiful woman, and often repeat “not mine” in my head or even verbally. She’s not mine. God has her set aside. She’s not mine. She’s His little girl, and she needs me to fight for her by keeping my eyes where they should be."

07-29-2003, 04:06 AM	#10
Scootermuze Confirmed User Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 4,513	Even if these guys were totally correct .. and did deserve to be paid.. the document they sent was a proposal at this point and not a binding contract until signed.. As with any proposal, you can go through it, pick the things you agree to, then eliminate the rest.. Type up your counter proposal, sign it , and return it.. Remove everything not directly related to the patent, determine what percentage of your business is pertinent, and word your proposal to agree to their percentage, but based only on the percentage of your business that applies. I have a feeling that they would accept it in that there is probably not a judge in the country that would make you put back the unrelated items.. such as providing information about other individuals, agreeing to pay for something that they're not entitled to, etc.. Further, if the contract, as is, should be tested in the courts, as a whole agreement, then if they strike even one item, the entire contract could be shot down.

07-29-2003, 06:01 AM	#16
rogerbo Confirmed User Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 193	The point is to find this Documents of prior Art on Universitys Like Berkley or MIT http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~...harles_N=.html Charles N. Lo, Henri E. Tohme, Richard S. Wolff: A Hybrid Architecture for Analog Video Broadcast and B-ISDN Services in Customer Premises Networks. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications 8(7): 1327-1339 (1990) So there IS some docs the problem is only to find them. __________________ Teen Elf's Blog Teenhouse<br> MAKE ME RICH NOW ------ ICOO

07-29-2003, 06:10 AM	#17
Theo HAL 9000 Industry Role: Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 34,515	acacia stock volume is nothing http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=actg&d=1d

07-29-2003, 06:14 AM	#18
Tipsy Confirmed User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: See sig Posts: 6,989	http://biz.yahoo.com/cc/7/32047.html Seems to say they'll have an audio link at 4.30 eastern time to the report for those interested. __________________ Ignorance is never bliss.