FTP's Acacia FAQ - Page 3 - GoFuckYourself.com

FightThisPatent · 10-31-2003, 06:56 AM

New prior art posted!

http://www.fighthepatent.com/v2/Squirt.html

Fight the Patent!

FightThisPatent · 10-31-2003, 08:29 AM

Just added an Acacia FAQ and a Fight The Patent Foundation FAQ at http://www.FightThePatent.com/go

(aggregate of postings I have done on the boards, summarized in one place).

Fight the Patent!

FightThisPatent · 10-31-2003, 12:08 PM

FightThisPatent · 11-01-2003, 09:44 AM

I have heard and read many times that Hustler settled because their internet revenued ($12M+) was a small part of their business and didn't want to expose the rest of their business to litigation.

One fact that many are missing... Acacia's patent claims are not limited to internet-based audio/video.

They have also INTERPRETED their patent to lay claims to Video-on-Demand as evident by LodgeNet.com signing up.

Lodgenet is the largest VOD provider to hotels.

Hustler makes alot of money on the VOD side (ie. pay per view), so that would also be covered by Acacia.. so therefore more reasons for them to fight than to settle.

I have heard so many times that in defense of Hustler's actions to settle was that Internet revenue was so smalll compared to the rest of the company..... but, as i stated above, Acacia also covers VOD...which is a larger part of their revenue stream.

Fight the Patent!

FightThisPatent · 11-02-2003, 05:13 PM

FightThisPatent · 11-03-2003, 07:10 AM

List of companies that Acacia has filed suit with.. interesting reading:

http://corporate.findlaw.com/scripts...a&SC=Search%21

Fight the Patent!

FightThisPatent · 11-03-2003, 07:46 AM

When clicking on this URL, choose California and press "select state", then in the 'company name' box, type Acacia and press search.

Fight the Patent!

Post comments on this list of Acacia legal activity in this dedicated thread:

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...hreadid=193192

(keeps this thread from being cluttered)

thanx,

Fight the Patent!

macromind · 11-03-2003, 07:51 AM

Hey All!

Why dont you all move your servers to Canada where they dont have an enforcable patent... Look at that page to view the countries where it doesnt apply: http://www.acaciatechnologies.com/patents.htm

my

Macromind

FightThisPatent · 11-03-2003, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by macromind
Hey All!

Why dont you all move your servers to Canada where they dont have an enforcable patent...

Maybe someone should point that out to Acacia who seems to have sent several Canadian webmasters the Final Notice.... while i don't believe Acacia attorneys understand technology and patents too well, I give them some credit to knowing how to execute their licensing strategy..and if they sent letters to Canadian webmasters, i can only assume they know what they are doing.

Still waiting on some canadian webmasters to check with the Canadian Patent Office about US patents applying to Canada.

Soon as I get the answer, i'll post it here.

Fight the Patent!

keyman · 11-03-2003, 10:31 AM

Hi. I don't usually post on this forum, but I have a couple of things to say regarding the Acacia Tech. patents.

It had been over a year since I last read through Acacia's US patents. They seem to be going overboard with all of this now, which has prompted me to go through these patents again.

One of the immediate problems I see is that Acacia Tech. is using claims from different patents to enforce IP ownership of this "DMT technology."

The US patents, which they claim covers IP ownership of "DMT technology", are all extensions to the original US patent 5,132,992.

US patent 5,132,992 does not cover streaming audio and/or visual information because a subset of the invention, which is actually a process, states that a complete copy of the audio and/or visual information must be stored on the receiving system.

I'll quote from patent 5,132,992:

Claim 19. A distribution method responsive to requests from a user identifying items in a transmission system containing information to be sent from the transmission system to receiving systems at remote locations, the method comprising the steps of:

...

storing a complete copy of the received information in the receiving system at the selected remote location

It is also stated in the description of the invention:

Another object of the present invention is to provide a picture and sound transmission system wherein the user may play back the selected audio/video material at any time selected by the user and retain a copy of the audio/video material for multiple playbacks in the future.

It is not the intention of modern streaming media technology to provide the user with the ability to store or retain a copy of the audio and/or visual data for later playback.

FightThisPatent · 11-03-2003, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by keyman
US patent 5,132,992 does not cover streaming audio and/or visual information because a subset of the invention, which is actually a process, states that a complete copy of the audio and/or visual information must be stored on the receiving system.

Acacia's patent does cover the use of streaming audio or video, but only for pre-recorded stuff.. not live.

A pre-recorded file exists on the server, and is served up by a server that communicates to a client software to view/listen to the digitized file.

Downloading an AVI, MP3, etc using an apache web server helps to distribute the file, so that's also covered by their (aburd) patent claims.

If you have live audio/video like a net radio site or live broadcasting, you are not infringing.

BUT, if you have archived footage, you are...

Fight the Patent!

FightThisPatent · 11-03-2003, 12:26 PM

For those that know where their main library is at..... feel free to check out your library to see if they have books on Commodore 64, Amiga, and Macintosh books published before 1990.

The dusty books may have references to BBS where you can download digitized audio or video.

Could be great prior art!

Email me: brandon at FightThePatent.com with the book title, author, etc....so i can track it down.. or photocopy/scan a page and email it to me.

I will be sure to post it on the prior art page with your nickname (protecting private info).

One webmaster ordered a C64 book and a Amiga book that they thought might be useful...and is waiting to receive the books.

I'll be taking a trip down to the Main library to check out what they have.

Fight the Patent!

keyman · 11-03-2003, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Acacia's patent does cover the use of streaming audio or video, but only for pre-recorded stuff.. not live.

According to Acacia it does, yes. I think if you read my points you might see that I have a fairly strong argument. I have found other problems with these patents, but I was looking for something that will make sense to someone who is not "skilled in the art."

Finding something that would qualify as prior art would be a nice quick fix. I personally don't think anyone will find anything that was in wide-spread use during, and before 1991. Remember, this patent doesn't cover the transmission of video/audio data alone, it describes a process of compressing, encoding, storing, requesting, transceiving, and play back.

Something that shows video and audio being transmitted does not invalidate this patent in any way.

If I was to build an embodiment from the patent documents, I would have to include all claims, unless specified otherwise. Leaving out any of the components of the invention would render it to be a different embodiment to the described invention.

FightThisPatent · 11-03-2003, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by keyman

If I was to build an embodiment from the patent documents, I would have to include all claims, unless specified otherwise. Leaving out any of the components of the invention would render it to be a different embodiment to the described invention.

You are correct.. and unfortunately, Fight The Patent Foundation is only but a concept, so I can't hire my own team of patent law experts to address these issues... but I am sure that the Defense team (F&R) for the defendants are looking at all the claims and knocking them down one by one.

The existance of prior art does help to show the eventual judge and jury in the most simplistic non-technical way, that what Acacia is claiming has already been done by those prior to 1990.

Like an onion, there are many layers to have to peal away, with no one layer being just the end.

This is why i can see why cases like SightSound vs CDNOW/BMG is in it's 7th year and they finally won the right to go to Summary Judgement (for those keeping track at home, SightSound = bad).

Fight the Patent!

fiveyes · 11-03-2003, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by keyman
... I personally don't think anyone will find anything that was in wide-spread use during, and before 1991. Remember, this patent doesn't cover the transmission of video/audio data alone, it describes a process of compressing, encoding, storing, requesting, transceiving, and play back. ...

The "wide-spread use" doesn't enter into the picture, check out http://www.lawnotes.com/patent/deadline/public.html for how little can be considered as invalidating public usage.

As far as meeting all of the independent claims of the patent(s), there are at least three areas in the late '80s that weren't considered by the PTO that I believe constitute prior art along these lines- BBSs, FTP sites and conference demonstrations of distributed multimedia. The fact that none of these were in wide-spread usage at the time for video files, mostly because of modem speed restrictions, only makes the examples more difficult to track down is all.

Gateway69 · 11-03-2003, 04:00 PM

this is all about finding prior art to help abolish this silly ass patent.

btw does anyone have a patent on sending data packets from point A to point B? wouldn?t Acacia be infringing on that patent?

anyhow.. back to prior art..

alot of us were commodore or Atari users and most of us know that those computers at the time blew away anything that was on the pc.

we all at some point d/l some software off a bbs, tymnet, compuserv, portal, or even early ftp access.

the prob is tracking down what files where avail, when they where avail and if they are still around or could find someone to testify towards the defense.

I have a few things im looking at that have video/audio in them.

check out google groups as well, their their news feed goes back to 1980 something and there are lots of threads talking about people on the amiga d/ling demos or such that had video or audio in them.

I think someone should get a blurb on www.slashdot.org about all of this and the search for prior art, there is nothing like the power of slashdot to take down a server or find information.

if anyone is good at writing up stuff submit a article to slashdot about FTP (fight the patent) not file transfer protocol

its not time to sit back and watch what happens its time to use all your google skills you learned to find prior art.

from my understanding this could be any sort of digital video or audio sample that COULD be d/l from another source (bbs etc)

im sure brandon can make it alot clearer.

there is alot of stuff out there, and its before the year 1990, just think of this as the ultimate scavenger hunt that will eventually help our community out.

amatvideo · 11-05-2003, 03:54 AM

I have a couple of questions and an idea I am hoping people will give me an opinion on -- Sorry if others have already discussed this

First off, what I am really annoyed with is the idea of gross revenue determining my license fee for each year. I have an amateur membership site that is about 75% pics and 25% video clips. As far as I see, it seems to me that 25% of my gross revenue is is due to their technology so I should pay a fee based on that, but after contacting them I have come to find that my entire website gross is what matters. Does anyone else find it stupid for them to have this kind of policy, and has anyone thought to challange their fees based on this idea?

Second, here is what we are thinking -- Since acacia doesn't care how the site is comrised, what if we divide our members site into two seperate sites, and when you sign up you are actually signing up for 2 seperate domains, one for all the pics, and one for all the videos. On the sign up page I make it so that the the fee for the pics site is $18.95, and the fee for the video site is $1.00. Then as long as I don't sell more than 49,999 memberships for the year, I'll never have to pay more than their stupid $1500 (and pray Spike and his friends can manage to win within a year or 2). Does this seem workable and a backdoor to minimize fees when those wackjobs file against me???

Last Question -- I belong to a cam circle (sex cam central) and do a live show each week -- Is my live show considered to violate the patent?

Feel free to write to me directly if you have comments and ideas
Tree
[email protected]

FightThisPatent · 11-05-2003, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by amatvideo
1) As far as I see, it seems to me that 25% of my gross revenue is is due to their technology so I should pay a fee based on that, but after contacting them I have come to find that my entire website gross is what matters. Does anyone else find it stupid for them to have this kind of policy, and has anyone thought to challange their fees based on this idea?

2)Second, here is what we are thinking -- Since acacia doesn't care how the site is comrised, what if we divide our members site into two seperate sites, and when you sign up you are actually signing up for 2 seperate domains,..........Does this seem workable and a backdoor to minimize fees when those wackjobs file against me???

3) Last Question -- I belong to a cam circle (sex cam central) and do a live show each week -- Is my live show considered to violate the patent?

1) Yes, it does sound stupid, but they are probably taking the position that it's hard to separate what value video brought to the consumer that facilitated the purchase... so they take the easy way out and just go after GROSS revenue, which is GROSSLY ridiculuos. Since they get to peak at your financial records, they might as well take the time to help come to some reasonable number for gross revenue that pertains to the value of audio/video, rather than the aggregate. Haven't heard anyone trying to make their case with Acacia and be successful in getting a response other than 'dude, you're like infringing, so like pay us money already'.

2) An interesting approach.. they could of course look at your books and see that this new domain just started generating revenue, and they can go after you for retro fees on past infringements in the event they bring a lawsuit against you.

3) Live streaming is not claimed by their (INTERPRETED) patent claims. But more people who do live streaming, usually end up having archived footage, so that would be 1 count of infringement. If you use affiliate programs and are using a sponsor that hasn't licensed, they would consider that another count of infringement.

To catch up on all things Acacia, visit http://www.FightThePatent.com/go. There is an Acacia FAQ that is updated regularly as well as info about Fight the Patent Foundation proposal.

Fight the Patent!

amatvideo · 11-05-2003, 08:32 AM

Thanks for the response

I was thinking about some of the same things you mentioned, and here are my thoughs --

First, besides our adult sites we own and manage a big set of commercial sites which is the bulk of our $ -- Right at the moment all the online busineese are on one set of books -- So if they look at my books they will see gross sales that are 5 times what just the adult side makes. That's another reason I do not want them looking at my books. If they want to see my 'books', I'm gonna give them my CCBill access info and let them see just that! What goes on with my other online businesses that have nothing to do with digital video is none of their damn business!

What I plan on doing is paying the fee this year based on my total gross sales -- Once I have signed the license the first time and paid my fees, then I have 'amnesty' for the years I didn't have a license. At that point I will split the site in two -- then if I piss them off they cannot come after me for the earlier years.

I have read the license over and over, and nowhere in it do I find anything about selling at a 'reasonable fee' or a fee that reflects market value. Seems to me that I can lose $ on one site if I want to to protect the other sites.

Finally, if they say anything to me, I plan on telling them that I have re-organized my sites to minimize my sales of digital video and maximize my sales of everything else until 1 minute after their patent runs out. There is nothing in their license about re-origization to minimize the license costs.

OK, I'll shut my trap now -- thanks for letting me bend your ear!
Tree
[email protected]

fiveyes · 11-05-2003, 08:54 AM

<B>amatvideo</B>:
Good luck trying to weasel a pack of jackals...

FightThisPatent · 11-08-2003, 07:52 AM

Great article about patents in general:

http://www.nytimes.com/library/magaz...g-patents.html

Fight the Long Posts!

FightThisPatent · 11-08-2003, 07:54 AM

Please do not post any prior art finds to the boards...email or ICQ them to me.

I put up a notice (good news!) on my prior arts page: http://www.fightthepatent.com/v2/Squirt.html

Fight the Discovery!

FightThisPatent · 11-12-2003, 06:59 AM

For those who are more tuned to patent issues due to Acacia, you may have heard the news about Eolas winning a $531M judgement against Microsoft for infringing on their patent that involves the hahahahahading of programs within a program (ie. running flash, audio players, etc in a web page)

This patent severly affects the way the web was intended to be used, and so the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) filed a petition with USPTO on October 23 for re-examination of the patent given the prior art that they found, that was not presented in M$ court case.

From this article:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3969

"Apparently, the PTO responded to this request, saying "a substantial outcry from a widespread segment of the affected industry has essentially raised a question of patentability." This order, issued on October 30, reviewed the claims and declared that the prior art introduced by Berners-Lee and Raggett raised "a substantial new question of patentabity." The order, signed by Steve Kunin, Deputy Commissioner of the US PTO, called for a reexamination of all claims relating to the '906 patent. "

We can see that in 1 week's time, the re-examination request was granted... usually this process takes alot longer, but it does go to show how public outcry does work.

FightThePatent.com has a new PR person, a webmistress who is a journalist, and she has just finished the first Press Release. I am reviewing it now, and we will be making a push to get mainstream attention.

Filing a re-examination request with the USPTO over the Acacia issue is a plausible route as well....but there are 2 problems.

1) USPTO may hold off on the request due to pending litigation with current defendants, or may interject and the court case be put on hold until it's decision... could go either way.

2) It takes more than the $1,000 filing fee. You need patent attorneys and your prior art lined up to present to USPTO.

Invalidating patents directly with the USPTO is a major part of what Fight the Patent Foundation will do to fight against patent abuse.

It would save companies millions of dollars each year in frivilous litigation costs if bad patents were invalidated directly with USPTO, rather than waiting for a defendants to pay the expenses of invalidating the patent in the court system.

More patent infringement cases will becoming more in the news (it already has), and even more so when it enters into your own backyard.

The defendants currently fighting Acacia are dealing with the immediate short term problem. FTPF is looking at the long term...and if the goal is reached, it can become active in the short term.... but that's up to the proposed 2,500 webmasters that are concerned enough, and believe that FTPF as a solution, to be able to contribute a one-time pledge of $100.

If a mandate can be shown, that it gives me every bit of confidence that i can then form the non-profit (501c3) organization because a large group of webmasters would have said that they do want the right to run their businesses, free of any (bogus) patent claims.

Fight the Claims!

FightThisPatent · 11-12-2003, 09:06 AM

For those tuning in late... refer back to page 1... this thread is a running thread for acacia related news... so lots of good stuff posted on all of the pages.

It's alot ot read through, but alot of information is in here for you to help get informed.

Fight the Long Threads!

FightThisPatent · 11-14-2003, 04:23 PM

Summary of FTC hearing on patents, software, and the internet:

Very good reading (this is the short version)

http://www.ffii.org.uk/ftc/ftc.html

Fight the Long Version!

juice · 11-14-2003, 04:26 PM

Because of Acacia.. is it better to incorporate in Europe.. for canadian?

Can they go after canadians if they are incorporated in the US?

CCBill charge 1% more for EU based business... What is Acacia asking.. 2% ? And as I can see, most people are waiting to see if acacia win before paying anything.. So is incorporating in the US a fairly safe choice?

EZRhino · 11-14-2003, 04:30 PM

Fuck Acacia

FightThisPatent · 11-14-2003, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by juice
Because of Acacia.. is it better to incorporate in Europe.. for canadian?

Can they go after canadians if they are incorporated in the US?

Canadians are being targeted by Acacia...several webmasters have received the Final Notice, and i believe that they can go into canada...it may be costly, or require a canadian law firm, but i believe they can and will.

Acacia has patents filed in europe..so that won't make you safe.

For issues of obscenity, patents, etc... the safest place would be countries that have very relaxed laws... sorry, don't know what countries those are....

Fight the NAFTA!

FightThisPatent · 11-17-2003, 11:30 AM

Some info concerning patent re-examination request like the one that is being done against the Eolas patent (Microsoft lost in court to Eolas for allowing IE to use hahahahahaed programs like Flash). The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has petitioned the USPTO and the USPTO has accepted the request.

Usually takes 3-6 months after filing to be addressed. Due to public outcry, the request took 1 week and the USPTO Director personally approved the re-exam request!

Information gathered from talking to several patent attorneys on re-exams:

The patent examiner will spend about 15 hours total on the re-exam..which is alot more time than is spent on the actual patent(!!!) before coming to a preliminary decision, before then talking to the patent holder.

A person or company pays the filing fee (about $1,300) and then needs to have a patent attorney craft explanations of prior art to invalidate the patent claims. The estimate cost is about $30k-$50K for the whole process in attorney time, not to mention money spent to find prior art.

A completed document is filed to the USPTO...and then the examiner reviews the information and discusses with the patent holder. The review is one-sided..only the patent holder is allowed to discuss the prior art points with the examiner.

The process could take 6-8 months (or longer) before a final decision is made.

If the prior art is solid and the patent holder cannot explain away the evidence, then the patent is revoked and invalidated.

It is better to argue in court with a judge, then to take your chances with submitting a document to the USPTO. Atleast with a judge, you can argue your points....with the re-exam, there is not discussion.

The downside is that the patent holder can continue to gain new licensees of their patent, until the final outcome has been determined.

Fight the Delays!

FightThisPatent · 11-20-2003, 07:55 AM

Prior art page is back up: http://www.fightthepatent.com/v2/PriorArtFound.html

Specific details are removed to protect the defendants case.. but i do release the details to defense attorneys (at no cost).

Fight the Misconceptions!

10-31-2003, 06:56 AM	#101
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	New prior art posted! http://www.fighthepatent.com/v2/Squirt.html Fight the Patent! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

10-31-2003, 08:29 AM	#102
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	Just added an Acacia FAQ and a Fight The Patent Foundation FAQ at http://www.FightThePatent.com/go (aggregate of postings I have done on the boards, summarized in one place). Fight the Patent! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

10-31-2003, 12:08 PM	#103
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	__________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

11-01-2003, 09:44 AM	#104
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	I have heard and read many times that Hustler settled because their internet revenued ($12M+) was a small part of their business and didn't want to expose the rest of their business to litigation. One fact that many are missing... Acacia's patent claims are not limited to internet-based audio/video. They have also INTERPRETED their patent to lay claims to Video-on-Demand as evident by LodgeNet.com signing up. Lodgenet is the largest VOD provider to hotels. Hustler makes alot of money on the VOD side (ie. pay per view), so that would also be covered by Acacia.. so therefore more reasons for them to fight than to settle. I have heard so many times that in defense of Hustler's actions to settle was that Internet revenue was so smalll compared to the rest of the company..... but, as i stated above, Acacia also covers VOD...which is a larger part of their revenue stream. Fight the Patent! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

11-02-2003, 05:13 PM	#105
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	__________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

11-03-2003, 07:10 AM	#106
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	List of companies that Acacia has filed suit with.. interesting reading: http://corporate.findlaw.com/scripts...a&SC=Search%21 Fight the Patent! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

11-03-2003, 07:46 AM	#107
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	When clicking on this URL, choose California and press "select state", then in the 'company name' box, type Acacia and press search. Fight the Patent! Post comments on this list of Acacia legal activity in this dedicated thread: http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...hreadid=193192 (keeps this thread from being cluttered) thanx, Fight the Patent! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957 Last edited by FightThisPatent; 11-03-2003 at 07:48 AM..

11-03-2003, 07:51 AM	#108
macromind Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: montreal Posts: 202	Hey All! Why dont you all move your servers to Canada where they dont have an enforcable patent... Look at that page to view the countries where it doesnt apply: http://www.acaciatechnologies.com/patents.htm my Macromind __________________ TrafficHolder.com - Buy/Sell Adult Traffic

11-03-2003, 10:31 AM	#110
keyman Registered User Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 2	Hi. I don't usually post on this forum, but I have a couple of things to say regarding the Acacia Tech. patents. It had been over a year since I last read through Acacia's US patents. They seem to be going overboard with all of this now, which has prompted me to go through these patents again. One of the immediate problems I see is that Acacia Tech. is using claims from different patents to enforce IP ownership of this "DMT technology." The US patents, which they claim covers IP ownership of "DMT technology", are all extensions to the original US patent 5,132,992. US patent 5,132,992 does not cover streaming audio and/or visual information because a subset of the invention, which is actually a process, states that a complete copy of the audio and/or visual information must be stored on the receiving system. I'll quote from patent 5,132,992: Claim 19. A distribution method responsive to requests from a user identifying items in a transmission system containing information to be sent from the transmission system to receiving systems at remote locations, the method comprising the steps of: ... storing a complete copy of the received information in the receiving system at the selected remote location It is also stated in the description of the invention: Another object of the present invention is to provide a picture and sound transmission system wherein the user may play back the selected audio/video material at any time selected by the user and retain a copy of the audio/video material for multiple playbacks in the future. It is not the intention of modern streaming media technology to provide the user with the ability to store or retain a copy of the audio and/or visual data for later playback.

11-03-2003, 12:26 PM	#112
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	For those that know where their main library is at..... feel free to check out your library to see if they have books on Commodore 64, Amiga, and Macintosh books published before 1990. The dusty books may have references to BBS where you can download digitized audio or video. Could be great prior art! Email me: brandon at FightThePatent.com with the book title, author, etc....so i can track it down.. or photocopy/scan a page and email it to me. I will be sure to post it on the prior art page with your nickname (protecting private info). One webmaster ordered a C64 book and a Amiga book that they thought might be useful...and is waiting to receive the books. I'll be taking a trip down to the Main library to check out what they have. Fight the Patent! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

11-03-2003, 04:00 PM	#116
Gateway69 Confirmed User Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 1,510	this is all about finding prior art to help abolish this silly ass patent. btw does anyone have a patent on sending data packets from point A to point B? wouldn?t Acacia be infringing on that patent? anyhow.. back to prior art.. alot of us were commodore or Atari users and most of us know that those computers at the time blew away anything that was on the pc. we all at some point d/l some software off a bbs, tymnet, compuserv, portal, or even early ftp access. the prob is tracking down what files where avail, when they where avail and if they are still around or could find someone to testify towards the defense. I have a few things im looking at that have video/audio in them. check out google groups as well, their their news feed goes back to 1980 something and there are lots of threads talking about people on the amiga d/ling demos or such that had video or audio in them. I think someone should get a blurb on www.slashdot.org about all of this and the search for prior art, there is nothing like the power of slashdot to take down a server or find information. if anyone is good at writing up stuff submit a article to slashdot about FTP (fight the patent) not file transfer protocol its not time to sit back and watch what happens its time to use all your google skills you learned to find prior art. from my understanding this could be any sort of digital video or audio sample that COULD be d/l from another source (bbs etc) im sure brandon can make it alot clearer. there is alot of stuff out there, and its before the year 1990, just think of this as the ultimate scavenger hunt that will eventually help our community out. __________________ Gateway - Tech Guru Dreaming Computers IG Last edited by Gateway69; 11-03-2003 at 04:02 PM..

11-05-2003, 03:54 AM	#117
amatvideo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: north east Pa Posts: 2	I have a couple of questions and an idea I am hoping people will give me an opinion on -- Sorry if others have already discussed this First off, what I am really annoyed with is the idea of gross revenue determining my license fee for each year. I have an amateur membership site that is about 75% pics and 25% video clips. As far as I see, it seems to me that 25% of my gross revenue is is due to their technology so I should pay a fee based on that, but after contacting them I have come to find that my entire website gross is what matters. Does anyone else find it stupid for them to have this kind of policy, and has anyone thought to challange their fees based on this idea? Second, here is what we are thinking -- Since acacia doesn't care how the site is comrised, what if we divide our members site into two seperate sites, and when you sign up you are actually signing up for 2 seperate domains, one for all the pics, and one for all the videos. On the sign up page I make it so that the the fee for the pics site is $18.95, and the fee for the video site is $1.00. Then as long as I don't sell more than 49,999 memberships for the year, I'll never have to pay more than their stupid $1500 (and pray Spike and his friends can manage to win within a year or 2). Does this seem workable and a backdoor to minimize fees when those wackjobs file against me??? Last Question -- I belong to a cam circle (sex cam central) and do a live show each week -- Is my live show considered to violate the patent? Feel free to write to me directly if you have comments and ideas Tree [email protected]

11-05-2003, 08:32 AM	#119
amatvideo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: north east Pa Posts: 2	Thanks for the response I was thinking about some of the same things you mentioned, and here are my thoughs -- First, besides our adult sites we own and manage a big set of commercial sites which is the bulk of our $ -- Right at the moment all the online busineese are on one set of books -- So if they look at my books they will see gross sales that are 5 times what just the adult side makes. That's another reason I do not want them looking at my books. If they want to see my 'books', I'm gonna give them my CCBill access info and let them see just that! What goes on with my other online businesses that have nothing to do with digital video is none of their damn business! What I plan on doing is paying the fee this year based on my total gross sales -- Once I have signed the license the first time and paid my fees, then I have 'amnesty' for the years I didn't have a license. At that point I will split the site in two -- then if I piss them off they cannot come after me for the earlier years. I have read the license over and over, and nowhere in it do I find anything about selling at a 'reasonable fee' or a fee that reflects market value. Seems to me that I can lose $ on one site if I want to to protect the other sites. Finally, if they say anything to me, I plan on telling them that I have re-organized my sites to minimize my sales of digital video and maximize my sales of everything else until 1 minute after their patent runs out. There is nothing in their license about re-origization to minimize the license costs. OK, I'll shut my trap now -- thanks for letting me bend your ear! Tree [email protected]

11-05-2003, 08:54 AM	#120
fiveyes Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: New Orleans Posts: 1,680	<B>amatvideo</B>: Good luck trying to weasel a pack of jackals... __________________ <CENTER><A HREF="http://www.hot-off-bourbon.com/" target="_blank"><IMG SRC="http://www.hot-off-bourbon.com/images/hob-logosmall.jpg" border="0"></A> <FONT face="Comic Sans MS" SIZE="-1"><I>Mardi Gras, Spring Break, Wet-T, Night Club Action, UpSkirt, Oil Wrestling, Voyeur</I></FONT></CENTER>

11-08-2003, 07:52 AM	#121
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	Great article about patents in general: http://www.nytimes.com/library/magaz...g-patents.html Fight the Long Posts! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

11-08-2003, 07:54 AM	#122
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	Please do not post any prior art finds to the boards...email or ICQ them to me. I put up a notice (good news!) on my prior arts page: http://www.fightthepatent.com/v2/Squirt.html Fight the Discovery! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

11-12-2003, 06:59 AM	#123
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	For those who are more tuned to patent issues due to Acacia, you may have heard the news about Eolas winning a $531M judgement against Microsoft for infringing on their patent that involves the hahahahahading of programs within a program (ie. running flash, audio players, etc in a web page) This patent severly affects the way the web was intended to be used, and so the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) filed a petition with USPTO on October 23 for re-examination of the patent given the prior art that they found, that was not presented in M$ court case. From this article: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3969 "Apparently, the PTO responded to this request, saying "a substantial outcry from a widespread segment of the affected industry has essentially raised a question of patentability." This order, issued on October 30, reviewed the claims and declared that the prior art introduced by Berners-Lee and Raggett raised "a substantial new question of patentabity." The order, signed by Steve Kunin, Deputy Commissioner of the US PTO, called for a reexamination of all claims relating to the '906 patent. " We can see that in 1 week's time, the re-examination request was granted... usually this process takes alot longer, but it does go to show how public outcry does work. FightThePatent.com has a new PR person, a webmistress who is a journalist, and she has just finished the first Press Release. I am reviewing it now, and we will be making a push to get mainstream attention. Filing a re-examination request with the USPTO over the Acacia issue is a plausible route as well....but there are 2 problems. 1) USPTO may hold off on the request due to pending litigation with current defendants, or may interject and the court case be put on hold until it's decision... could go either way. 2) It takes more than the $1,000 filing fee. You need patent attorneys and your prior art lined up to present to USPTO. Invalidating patents directly with the USPTO is a major part of what Fight the Patent Foundation will do to fight against patent abuse. It would save companies millions of dollars each year in frivilous litigation costs if bad patents were invalidated directly with USPTO, rather than waiting for a defendants to pay the expenses of invalidating the patent in the court system. More patent infringement cases will becoming more in the news (it already has), and even more so when it enters into your own backyard. The defendants currently fighting Acacia are dealing with the immediate short term problem. FTPF is looking at the long term...and if the goal is reached, it can become active in the short term.... but that's up to the proposed 2,500 webmasters that are concerned enough, and believe that FTPF as a solution, to be able to contribute a one-time pledge of $100. If a mandate can be shown, that it gives me every bit of confidence that i can then form the non-profit (501c3) organization because a large group of webmasters would have said that they do want the right to run their businesses, free of any (bogus) patent claims. Fight the Claims! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

11-12-2003, 09:06 AM	#124
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	For those tuning in late... refer back to page 1... this thread is a running thread for acacia related news... so lots of good stuff posted on all of the pages. It's alot ot read through, but alot of information is in here for you to help get informed. Fight the Long Threads! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

11-14-2003, 04:23 PM	#125
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	Summary of FTC hearing on patents, software, and the internet: Very good reading (this is the short version) http://www.ffii.org.uk/ftc/ftc.html Fight the Long Version! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

11-14-2003, 04:26 PM	#126
juice Confirmed User Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 628	Because of Acacia.. is it better to incorporate in Europe.. for canadian? Can they go after canadians if they are incorporated in the US? CCBill charge 1% more for EU based business... What is Acacia asking.. 2% ? And as I can see, most people are waiting to see if acacia win before paying anything.. So is incorporating in the US a fairly safe choice?

11-14-2003, 04:30 PM	#127
EZRhino Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: couch Posts: 6,258	Fuck Acacia

11-17-2003, 11:30 AM	#129
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	Some info concerning patent re-examination request like the one that is being done against the Eolas patent (Microsoft lost in court to Eolas for allowing IE to use hahahahahaed programs like Flash). The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has petitioned the USPTO and the USPTO has accepted the request. Usually takes 3-6 months after filing to be addressed. Due to public outcry, the request took 1 week and the USPTO Director personally approved the re-exam request! Information gathered from talking to several patent attorneys on re-exams: The patent examiner will spend about 15 hours total on the re-exam..which is alot more time than is spent on the actual patent(!!!) before coming to a preliminary decision, before then talking to the patent holder. A person or company pays the filing fee (about $1,300) and then needs to have a patent attorney craft explanations of prior art to invalidate the patent claims. The estimate cost is about $30k-$50K for the whole process in attorney time, not to mention money spent to find prior art. A completed document is filed to the USPTO...and then the examiner reviews the information and discusses with the patent holder. The review is one-sided..only the patent holder is allowed to discuss the prior art points with the examiner. The process could take 6-8 months (or longer) before a final decision is made. If the prior art is solid and the patent holder cannot explain away the evidence, then the patent is revoked and invalidated. It is better to argue in court with a judge, then to take your chances with submitting a document to the USPTO. Atleast with a judge, you can argue your points....with the re-exam, there is not discussion. The downside is that the patent holder can continue to gain new licensees of their patent, until the final outcome has been determined. Fight the Delays! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957

11-20-2003, 07:55 AM	#130
FightThisPatent Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 4,090	Prior art page is back up: http://www.fightthepatent.com/v2/PriorArtFound.html Specific details are removed to protect the defendants case.. but i do release the details to defense attorneys (at no cost). Fight the Misconceptions! __________________ http://www.t3report.com (where's the traffic?) v5.0 is out! \| http://www.FightThePatent.com \| ICQ 52741957