FightThisPatent

I am on a mailing list for news about the fight to stop software patents in EU.

There are many websites and organizations fighting it at:

http://swpat.ffii.org/#news

http://patents.caliu.info/

I list some additional links at:
http://www.fighthepatent.com/v2/News.html



It's tough to get involved from the US side, because it means lobbying Congress to tell the USPTO to stop putting pressure on EU Patent Office... this is a long term battle, much like Patent Reform...that requires ALOT of money for lobbying, an alot of insider connections... this is where this effort is well beyond me.

I am looking to attack the problems from both the short term prespectives of helping defendants to defend against a patent abuse case as well as long term by petitioning to invalidate patents directly with the USPTO.

Efforts like this, when combined with existing organizations that are lobbying for US Patent Reform and groups lobbying for EU patent reform (ie.no software patents), is where people are making a difference at different levels, we only differ in how we choose to fight.



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Nom de Guerre

FightThisPatent: This is a global war, and we will win it together.

Many armies tried what it feels like to fight a war on 2 fronts, and most didn't like it acacia will get to try it now..

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The problem is that there is no unity... despite IMPA and my efforts to help bring webmasters together, to bring back the notion of community, the efforts, atleast on my part, don't seem to be working as evident by the pledge counter below.

There is great irony in my efforts to try and defend webmaster's right to do business, free of additional "taxes" of licensing fees, but as you can see from this thread titled: 12clicks vs. Fight The Patent (http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...hreadid=188695), you can read how my solution for fighting is one that is just that, an idea.


Here's a fun bit of satire i wrote titled: Attention Patent Holders (http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...hreadid=189508)

For a satirical piece, it's so dead-on accurate.



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Lee

Question: In the UK we have the data protection act, and indeed there are versions of it in all EU Countries and others. Is there something similar in the States? For instance, if a company passes my details to Acacia, then this would infringe the data protection act over here. Im sure that using the information would be challengable too.

Here is a bit of the data protection act concerning non-EU countries taken from the eighth principle of the act:

The European Economic Area (the ?EEA?) consists of the fifteen EU
Member States together with Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The
Eighth Principle prohibits the transfer of personal data to any country or
territory outside the EEA (?third country?) unless the third country in
question ensures ?an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms
of data subjects? (?adequate level of protection?) for those personal data in
the particular circumstances of the data transfer operation or set of data
transfer operations (?transfer?) in question.

If a company is selling/passing my details to a bunch of sharks like Acacia I would not consider that to be an adequate level of protection.

Nom de Guerre

fightthepatent: serving the common good is an ungrateful job, and all you will get out of this work is the respect of those that care.

personally i have joined this fight for only one reason.
NOBODY THREATHENS ME, AND GET'S AWAY WITH IT.. i will see the fuckers in hell, and i suspect i will have more friends down there than the fuckers from acacia....

i am contacting local media, local politicians, local political activists, usa and eu haters - anybody that will join the fight. personally i love the us, but many europeans are not crazy about the us with your current president, and this will make the us look like arrogant capitalists - and many european politicians hate that intensely ..it will not be good for us/eu relations, but fuck'em all.. acacia is going down for this..

Nom de Guerre

good thinking Lee if we can just find out who gave them the data, we all sue them in our own contries all over the eu. then they will have to appear in court all over eu - and if they don't appear, the company officers will never be able to set foot in the eu again without being arrested..
..

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Feel free to reference them to my site, i intentionally not include adult-related info, "santized" for mainstream consumption, since Acacia is not only about adult industry...

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Anyone actually call up their sponsors to see if they settled?

If they did settle, if they have the same kind of provisions as Hustler that protects the affiliates?

Please share... we are missing some hard facts.

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Nom de Guerre

i already did that

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Anyone bother to call their sponsor???

Anyone? Bueller?



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Burnie

Long read, but I liked your post at "ynotmasters", on "Attention Patent Holders". You should post the link here, Some Might read it.

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reposted for your satirical reading enjoyment:

"Attention Patent Holders"

If you have a patent and are thinking about coming into the adult industry to "convince" people to license your patent, I have some observations and comments for you (for those that are satire-challenged, this is a satire):


1) It won't matter what your patent actually means, what will scare webmasters it what you WANT your patent to mean. Just point out how you SAY they are infringing, show them a patent application and a license fee, and they will most likely believe you.

You don't have to be right. Take advantage of Patent and Civil Law where they are guilty until proven innocent.... and as you know, only a court will be able to make that decision.



2) There is no community. Don't worry about the big players looking out for the smaller players.. just get sweetheart deals with them so you can parade their name around town. You can make so much more money by getting a mass number of webmasters to pay you a smaller amount, then to get a few big players to pay you a large amount.



3) Don't try to go after large mainstream companies or universities, you will only get yourself in to a huge court battle with people who have deeper pockets. Pick on the targets that make enough money to pay for a nice car and a nice house and who spend their time on GFY posting how great they are.



4) Don't charge alot of money or do any percentages of GROSS revenue.. That's just a bad idea.. make the fee structure simple like if you make less than $300K/year, the fee for the license is like $1000. Over $300K, charge $2000.

$1000 is cheaper than 3-5 hours of attorney time and a low enough threshold that they will just pay you the money to be done with it.

Think about it.. 10,000 websites giving you $1,000/year = $10M/year all for doing nothing but sending out information/infringement packets. You already know how to do spam, just print it this time and mail it. I bet you will see higher then 1:500 conversions.



5) Don't worry about people like me who are trying to bring awareness to patent abuse. While I am trying to help defend people's right to do business, free of any bad patent (a bad patent is one where the idea or invention was in use before the patent), I am being criticized and bashed for my efforts.

Don't worry about my Fight the Patent Foundation idea, just look at the pledge counter below.. i am open enough to display the total, and as you can tell, I am far off from reaching the total. The big players could contribute to the Foundation, since I am not focused on just one patent abuse case, but most likely they will just continue with their business and deal with people like you on a case-by-case basis.

Anyone who tries to get webmasters to contribute to a fund to band together gets seen as some kind of "scam artist" or a fraud. Even organizations that have been setup by fellow webmasters like IMPA have trouble getting webmasters to donate/become members.

By making a sweetheart deal with some big players, you could actually get people who admire those companies to actually bash anyone who tries to fight against your patent. Some of these people will have good credibility with the webmasters that others will automatically think that they must be right, so they too should take up the bashing. It's a brilliant strategy to help silence and defeat any effort that tries to go against you.



6) Don't worry about the 11 defendants that are standing up to Acacia... they will get burnt out financially from the expenses of their defense. They will also be jaded by the lack of industry support and will most likely not be standing up to fight against the next attack. Think about it.. paying like $15K-$50K each for defense, could pay your $1,000 license easily, for 15-50 years!



7) Go after everyone up the chain from web designers, web hosts, webmasters, content producers, domain registrars, etc. Target everyone.... you never know what will stick til you throw it on the wall. Even send out letters to webmasters who are in no way infringing on your INTERPRETED patent... they may just pay you anyways.



8) Don't bother thinking that I might want to join your company (had one company already ask). While I am very technically skilled with some business savvy, I would rather give up all my technological innovations, turn my computer off, disconnect from the internet, and go do some woodworking, rather than see patent abuse stifle innovation and financially drain companies.



9) The webmasters won't read this whole post, it's way too long for them.. anything longer than a 1 sentence jab is too much for them, so don't worry about me posting this in a public forum, they won't be reading it.



10) Use Affiliate progams as easy ways of getting mailing addresses of people to target. Maybe offer some stock to these companies. I know you think that's harsh, why bite the hand that feeds you? If you can get them sweetheart deal, maybe give them some stock, and keep it all confidential, then it's all good.

Sure, it may suck that the people who helped make them successful get hit with the license. They know it takes money to make money, so this low-cost patent license is just another cost of doing business. If they can't afford the $1,000/year, then they just aren't doing something right. Afterall, the sponsor worked so hard to build up their business, they know what it takes.



Summary:

You have picked a great target in selecting the Adult Industry.. Berman from Acacia said it best, they are "low hanging fruit".

Just follow along with the Acacia news, study their methods and you will have a blueprint for your own plans.

The only problem that I think you may have, is that other people already have similar ideas of targeting webmasters for patents.

If too many patent licenses come out at the same time, you could end up really pissing people off, and then they would join together (when that happens, i'll be long gone after my fingers have gone stiff from all the emails and posts trying to get support, from my voice going scratchy in all the phone calls in helping to bring awareness, and by the bruises I take for being bashed in defending people's rights).

Better that you join forces with the other patent players (just don't make it public because that could be an antitust issue) and schedule/time your efforts. Maybe like 1 per quarter.. spread out the schedule so you put things in rotation and then you won't hurt your individual efforts in leeching money from these hard working webmasters. Just when their wound starts to heal from the previous patent attack, you hit them with another.


------------



This is a satirical post. If you did not laugh at the end, then you would have realized that "truth is said in jest".

Everyone of these points you can see is going on right now (minus some stuff I made up for this fictional story).

If you want to take a stand against patent abuse, join me in my solution and my fight at http://www.FightThePatent.com/go

If you don't like my solution, come up with a better one. I will join it if you can come up with a better way.

Just wait a little longer... the fictional story above will be come a real one.


-brandon

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sexeducation

lol ...
not bad Brandon ...
you're getting better ...
at getting the word out ...

may I suggest ...
however, short simple statements (IMO) do better ...

For example;
Have you told Acacia who your customers were this month in their monthly required sales report included with the remission cheque?

Holly

Shut up you idiot.

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MichaelP

They will ask you to get a webmaster license because you are doin a profit fom memebrship you sell to silversach, and silvercash have videos in their members area...

FightThisPatent

Listen to the archived 3Q conference call at :http://biz.yahoo.com/cc/9/35459.html (gee, wonder if Yahoo has a license)

Interesting points i remember from the call:

1) A shareholder asked if there were any open litigations and the exec answered NO. Which means they misrepresented the facts..there are 11 defendants just waiting for the court to schedule a date. ( Anyone know any Securities Attorney? )


2) That Acacia has updated their business model to include having companies loan them their patents and allow them to go around and "convince" people to license the patent, then they share the bounty with the company. (Acacia PURCHASED the 'DMT' patent. )


3) Only $1M set aside in their warchest for patent litigation. (Where did the $27M in licenses for V-Chip go?)


4) Acacia would be expanding licensing activities into Europe and Asia in Q4



5) That's all i can remember.. i have seen places on the web where you can pay for transcripts of conference calls...



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FightThisPatent

repost of an article from fightthepatent.com copyright 2003


Mo Patents, Mo Money: Making money by licensing patents


As you can tell by reading the news and this website, there is a new way to make money. Forget about making a product that people will buy and use. Forget about inventing gadgets and devices that cause consumers to flock to you. Forget about starting a dot-com business and trying to be execute on a business plan.

The way to make money nowadays is to buy patents or to file patents for all kinds of ideas, and then later, license the patent to other companies.

For those that remember the Unisys/GIF issue of having to license the GIF patent, there is a small sigh of relief that the patent just expired! But as you recall, Unisys came out of dormancy by requiring software manufacturers to license the GIF image format. GIF images were so widely used by website and graphic programs that the whole computer industry was up in arms.

A company down in Austin, Texas is now coming back for the Unisys/GIF sequel and claiming the patent to JPEG! They are taking the right approach towards patent enforcement/licensing.. target businesses that MAKE PRODUCTS that utilize the patents.

If Forgent had followed Acacia's strategy, they would be suing every website that had JPEG images on them. This author believes that Acacia should have FIRST targeted companies like Real Networks and Microsoft for producing the technology that they felt violated their patents. If they really did own the patent to streaming/downloading audio, then let the big businesses (who are profitable) deal with the licensing issues. They in turn would end up passing down costs to the consumers.

Speaking of which..... Do you know how much money a DVD manufacturer has to pay for MPEG, Dolby, and DVD licensing to make a DVD player? The answer is about $20 per machine. This article details the licensing fees and how China is producing DVD players WITHOUT paying for licenses.

The cost of licensing a patent gets passed onto the consumers eventually. So with these kinds of licensing fees, and despite mass purchases by Walmart, we'll probably never see a $20 DVD player.

So if you are up late at night and watching TV, and you see those ads for patenting your invention/idea, maybe you might pay more attention to them now. Who knows, you may have some crazy idea today, that technologically speaking can't be created, but wait about 5-10 years and maybe it will. And by then, you'll be able to start suing companies and licensing patents.

You don't need a business plan or investors! Just come up with crazy ideas, file the patents, and wait for technology and people to start using your idea. This is the new, new, new, new, new, new economy.




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Marina

I have a question...........

Wouldn't it just be cheaper to hire a hitman?

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Not these days, with the high insurance premiums for hitman's health and medicial coverage, cost of living adjustments, 401K plan, plus the additional fees that the Hitman Union requires for covering trauma or therapy for the hitman, along with the re-habitilization and education programs, it gets to be very expenese... and the government just doesn't recognize these groups of people for government subsidies or welfare programs.






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repost of an article from FightThePatent.com copyright 2003.


Beam me up Scotty! Acacia?s Patent Claims invention of Teleportation


For those that have been following Acacia and the other broad patent (abuse) cases, you will have seen that companies INTERPRET their patents to mean something much broader than originally described. Since Acacia has gone on the war path of notifying websites of the interpretation of their patent infringements, I felt it was only fair to further interpret their patent.

In the ?992 patent, the patent authors make a claim that can be attributed to teleportation, the movement of objects from one location to another as seen on Star Trek. Let?s take a look at the actual language of the patent.

For those following at home, click (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...S=PN/5,132,992) to view the entire patent.

The abstract to the patent reads

Audio and video transmission and receiving system


"A system of distributing video and/or audio information employs digital signal processing to achieve high rates of data compression. The compressed and encoded audio and/or video information is sent over standard telephone, cable or satellite broadcast channels to a receiver specified by a subscriber of the service, preferably in less than real time, for later playback and optional recording on standard audio and/or video tape. "



While the abstract states audio and video, Acacia claims any kind of digitized information.

On the patent page, do a search for the word physical object?.

You will come to this paragraph

"Transmission system 100 of a preferred embodiment of the present invention preferably includes source material library means for temporary storage of items prior to conversion and storage in a compressed data library means.The items of information may include analog and digital audio and video information as well as physical objects such as books and records which require conversion to a compatible media typebefore converting, compressing and storing their audio and video data in the compressed data library means. "



To help you go through these two paragraphs, I?ll give you the quick summary of their patent.

Fig 2a (click on the IMAGES link on their patent application) of their patent application has a diagram at the bottom that illustrates the patent application.

Source Material Library (item 111) contains stuff to be digitized, and is assigned a unique ID in the Identification Encoding Process (item 112). The thing is then digitized in items 113 to 116, then the digitized file is compressed at item 117, and then stored in a Data Library. From here, the person selects the file that they want and it is sent to them. (Keep in mind, the invention is based on ordering movies for your television [Video on Demand] ).




In reading the patent excerpt above, you may start to see the reference to teleporation. The blue highlight marks the reference. So you are probably thinking, sure, they mean to digitize a book by scanning the pages and to digitize a record into digital audio.

The next paragraph brings it home:

"As shown in FIG. 2a, the source material library means included in transmission system 100 preferably includes a source material library 111. The source material library 111 may include different types of materials including television programs, movies, audio recordings, still pictures, files, books, computer tapes, computer disks, documents of various sorts, musical instruments, and other physical objects. These materials are converted to or recorded on a media format compatible to the digital and analog inputs of the system prior to being compressed and stored in a compressed data library 118. The different media formats preferably include digital or analog audio and video tapes, laser disks, film images, optical disks, magnetic disks, computer tapes, disks and, cartridges. "




Wuh?????????? Musical instruments and other physical objects?????? With this paragraph, the inventors have claimed an invention that can take a saxophone, digitize it into 1?s and 0?s and you can then order up the saxophone in a Shopping Channel type method, and have the saxophone be teleported to your home through your cable connection. Now this is what the Patent Office would consider ?Novel?!

The problem is that someone has already PATENTED (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...=teleportation) a Teleporter. Since the filing date of this application was in 1989, it would be the prior art to invalidate Acacia?s claims on Teleportation. And to the guy that filed the patent for the Teleporter, looks like he watched one too many Star Trek episodes to think that he is the inventor, probably thinks he?s Captain Kirk.

So what have we learned today? Patents can be written to be very broad and can be interpreted to mean whatever you want them to mean. Just as long as you have attorneys and money, you can sue anyone for anything. Unfortunately, it?s not a funny joke as smaller companies can?t afford to fight absurd claims and many times, end up folding their business or stop engaging in the "infringed claim".



Special thanks to one of FightThePatent's Legal Eagle readers for pointing out the musical instruments reference.

Editors Note: 1-sept-2003
The article is satirical in making the interpretation of Acacia claiming patent on Teleportation. Inbetween the humor lies these points:

1) patents are sometimes written very broadly and slip by the USPTO

2) patents can be interpreted by the patent holder to mean whatever they think it means

3) patent holders sue companies to try and enforce their interpretations

4) patents can be invalidated by finding prior art, and by explaining to the judge and jury that the patent is not feasible, or possible.

5) that some people are humor-challenged and didn't get that Acacia didn't really claim teleportation, that this article was mocking their patent by drawing attention to an actual absurd section of the patent.

While Acacia really doesn't claim teleportation (atleast I hope they don't), the article does show actual language that they used, that could allow you to interpret that they claim teleporation.

In the event that Acacia really did claim teleportation, they would have to deal with these two (http://www.allacrylic.com/IMAGES/pics/trekkies2.JPG) and these guys http://www.collectmad.com/madcoversite/screen.html).



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Contact info for Acacia From a YNOT interview with Berman:

"We are reasonable business people and are not the villains that some have made us out to be on the chat boards. If anybody has questions or special circumstances that apply to them, they are welcome to call (949-480-8300) or email us at [email protected]."


PLEASE BE PROFESSIONAL.

As I have been reading in another thread, calling them names, having them hangup on you, or you hanging up on them, doesn't get you the answers.


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Xbiz interviews Berman about Affiliate/Sponsor licensing issue:

http://xbiz.com/articles/index.php?article_idp=778



"In most cases, if the sponsor licenses from Acacia, the affiliate will be covered," Berman told XBiz




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FightThisPatent

The problem is that webmasters carry more than one sponsor... so that puts them in the same place of infringing.

You would exclude the revenue received from the sponsor that was covered, and then total the GROSS revenue on the ones that were unlicensed to determine your licensing fee.

Plus, if you have any audio/video files served off your own server, than that's another count of infringement.

It's still absurd


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FightThisPatent

It has been said in many, many posts that early settlers or other licensees had received sweetheart deals.

One company that settled said they didn't get a sweetheart deal and that they don't believe there was ever a sweetheart deal with anyone.

If there were sweetheart deals, it would be a no-no for Acacia since that would violate some antitrust laws.

These come to mind:

Sherman Anti-trust Act (1890)
Section 1 outlaws contracts and conspiracies in restraint of trade



Clayton Act (1914)
Section 2, amended by Robinson-Patman Act (1936), bans price discrimination that substantially lessens competition

Section 3 prohibits certain practices that might keep other firms from entering an industry or competing with an existing firm

Section 7, amended by the Celler-Kefauver Act (1950), outlaws mergers that substantially lessen competition



Federal Trade Commission Act (1914)

Section 5, amended by the Wheeler-Lea Act (1938), prohibits unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts




If you are a sponsor and you feel that other sponsors got sweetheart deals, you are able to make a complaint at:

https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01




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Snapshot of Acacia's financial status:

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/... 0&newsLang=en


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Non-Acacia related post:

Tim Berner-Lee jumps in to request a petition to USPTO to review the Eolas patent (that M$ lost a $531M summary) about running hahahahahaed programs (like Flash) within a browser:

http://www.w3.org/2003/10/27-rogan.html


For those who don't know it, Tim created the concept of the WWW and released it to everyone without patenting it.


I'll be contacting the person mentioned at the bottom about bringing awareness to Acacia and other patent holders with digital audio/video claims.


Here is the petition request:
http://www.w3.org/2003/10/301-filing.html



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Badabing

I've been reading & following the links from this thread and I'm still unclear about Acacia's view regarding affiliate webmasters. Here is my confusion... (sorry for the lengthy post):

If I have a free website without a/v content that links to a sponsor who provides a/v content, must I get an affiliate license with Acacia if that sponsor has a license with Acacia?

Must I get an affiliate license with Acacia if the sponsor I link to does not have a license with Acacia?

I know these are questions that should be asked of Acacia (and I will), but I am not clear based upon information at their website and statements made by Mr. Berman in his YNOT interviews. Was wondering what others think...not about the legality of Acacia's claims, but their interpretation of Acacia's expectations for free site affiliate webmasters who do not have a/v content on their sites.

In his 09/04/03 YNOT interview Rob Berman says:

?Affiliate programs provide access to sites that are most often owned by the affiliate, and in some cases, third parties. The affiliate company is either a direct infringer of our DMT patents (if they own the affiliate site) or an inducing infringer (if the affiliate site is owned by a third party). In either case, the liability for patent infringement is the same. Our affiliate license covers sites that are part of the affiliate program and the royalty is based upon subscription revenue for those sites. ?

The Acacia website says :

"Our license for Affiliate Program operators covers audio/video content that is accessed via web sites that are part of the Affiliate Program. The royalty is based upon subscription revenues from the Affiliate Program web sites."

However, it doesn't specify any details about the affiliate license (though it does give particulars and has links to the webmaster & content licenses.)


In his 10/04/03 YNOT interview Rob Berman seems to say that affiliate webmasters don't need to be licensed if their sites don't actually contain a/v content:

"YNOT NEWS: As far as affiliate Webmasters are concerned, what if a free adult site uses video that is hosted by a sponsor company? Does the sponsor company need a patent to cover themselves as well as the free sites that have teaser videos hosted by the sponsors? Is that what you are talking about with your affiliate license?

Rob Berman: Under our current licensing model, free adult entertainment sites that do not have audio / video content and send traffic to affiliate programs do not need a license from Acacia. Even though these sites are potentially liable as indirect infringers (for sending users to sites that stream audio / video content using our patented process), we are licensing the owners of the affiliate programs for these infringing activities. "

I interpret his first sentence to mean that if I'm an affiliate webmaster of a free site, don't have any a/v content, but link to a sponsor that does have a/v content, then I don't need a license.

The confusing part to me is the second sentence, because he seems to tie in the condition that the sponsor is licensed ("we are licensing the owners of the affiliate programs for these infringing activities. "). And even though the affiliate webmaster may be an indirect infringer Acacia is going to ignore that potential liability (out of the good graces of their hearts...sorry...couldn't resist).

What if my sponsor doesn't have a license? I'm not clear what their expectations are in that case.

FightThisPatent

1) No, Berman has made it clearer in recent news releases that if a sponsor has a license, then the affiliates don't have to. The problem is that a webmaster usually runs more than 1 affiliate program, so they will end up having to either get a license, or drop all sponsors who haven't settled

2) Yes.. if the sponsor hasn't settled, then that makes you a 'contributory infringer' so therefore you would need a license.

3) If they don't have a license then you could be liable.

This is all absurd and ridiculous..and unfortunately, the court systems move slow to give the 11 defendants their day in court.


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Badabing

Well...after making my post here went to another board that has an Acacia thread going & someone there had posted this link...

http://xbiz.com/articles/index.php?article_idp=778

"...The breakdown for sponsors and affiliates who are unclear about whether or not they need to license from Acacia is confusing...According to Acacia, the webmasters that don't need a license are the ones that don't have any audio or video access from their site and that send traffic only to a sponsor that is licensed by Acacia..."

FightThisPatent

ya, that URL was posted a couple of posts before yours....

Read the whole thread from page 1 for all things relevant to Acacia. You are missing other info by jumping into page2.


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FightThisPatent

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FightThisPatent

For those wanting to help in the search for prior art, check out my page at http://www.FightThePatent.com/v2/Searching.html

I list types of files that could be prior art.

A sampling of some potential prior art finds is at: http://www.FightThePatent.com/v2/Squirt.html

Couple great leads were sent in to me and they checked out nicely... I will be posting some additional finds shortly on the Squirt.html page.

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FightThisPatent

Join the search for prior art...... dig back into your memories on your BBS days.. and refer to the URL above for what kinds of things to be looking for.

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FightThisPatent

For those doing searches.. MOD files won't be considered prior art.

While MOD files contained digitized samples, they song is created by triggering the samples rather than being a complete digitized song.

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NightLizard

just a quick question, since acacia has no canadian patent, can they still come after canadian webmasters, is it under nafta?
thanks

besterman

What is the liability (if the patent is true) for websites owned by a company in a foreign country that does not recognize this patent? Should one be worried or is one quite safe...I mean countries such as Panama, or the Cayman Islands, etc..

FightThisPatent

I have some Canadian webmasters looking into this since I have yet to find a definitive answer.

Try calling them at http://patents1.ic.gc.ca/intro-e.html

I am guessing that US patents apply to canada, but Canadian patents might need to be filed in the US.

Let me know what you find.


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FightThisPatent

Sounds like you might be in countries that don't have patent offices and don't have agreements with the US.

If you are hosting with US-based ISP, then that's a different story.

Haven't heard this yet, but Acacia could potentially force the ISP to shutdown the website or slap them with a contributory infringement case.

I guess we'll know for sure when the first case hits an ISP.

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mardigras

Google is where it is because of it's reputation of being able to find anything. If they suddenly dumped all of the audio/video links and Yahoo didn't, where do you suppose surfers would go to search? Google might not be getting commissions directly from the sponsors but they sure are benefitting by their inclusion in their search... Some judge tech-illiterate enough would buy that.

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SinPusher

FightThisPatent,

After reading the letter from Tim Berner-Lee I wanted to point out that this may be just the person you need to contact concerning the "RFC 1190 - Experimental Internet Stream Protocol: Version 2" document and its predesessor IEN 119. As we had discussed before this RFC was less than the 1 year prior art limit, but the W3C has all the arcives of the email lists where the details were worked out before issuing the RFC. Since these were publicly available email lists, they would fully qualify as publicly available prior art.

I did notice a while ago that the RFC and the patent look like they came from the same piece of paper and that would mean the discussions on the email lists would be a closer fit than trying to make GRASP or ATALK fit the bill.

fiveyes

Thanks for posting that information!

A lot of times the amateur researcher into "prior art" is hampered by being unfamiliar with an area from 15 years ago and may end up wasting considerable time in exploring it before realizing that they're in a dead end, going through nothing but "close, but no cigar!" material.

I think a page on what directions NOT to go, with an explanation of why it's fruitless to look in that region, would be an asset simply because it would keep the searches focused in the areas that may prove productive.

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FightThisPatent

I was thinking the exact same thing... i will start the non prior art page tomorrow


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FightThisPatent

True.. but the Acacia patent covers digitized audio that is downloaded from a server.. so Grasp or Atalk are very good examples of cruder audio/video downloaded from a BBS.

There were so many digitized audio from C64 to Mac to PC that it is the prior art to invalidate the patent.

The RFC's that you mentioned were found as well....I found some of the early authors of those RFC.

Thanks again for the post.. having more eyes looking does help alot..... if there is a duplication of finds, then I will take the responsibility to avoid that by combining the http://www.FightThePatent.com/v2/Searching.html page that lists the files I am searching for, and a new page I will start tomorrow that lists stuff that are deadends (and i have alot of them).

I also need to post up some new prior art finds (like the one that fiveyes found)


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FightThisPatent

I'm gonna hit that next page post!

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