Acacia Showdown at the Patent Corral
 

The Markman Hearing that was heard to not be happening or not of any significance is being held:


February 6, 2004
10:00 am
Court Room 9A
Judge James Ware



Location

Southern Division:

Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse
411 West 4th Street
Santa Ana, California 92701


It's open to the public. I won't get to be there, but I will some sources providing me with observations of the events.


Markman Hearing Primer:
http://www.fightthepatent.com/v2/PreMarkman.html


-brandon
www.FightThePatent.com

msg me I have something interesting ICQ 117151486

RACEMAN

The outcome of the Markman Hearing will be for the judge to get final definitions on the words and claims used by Acacia.

Best case for Acacia, the judge agrees with their terms that the patent applies to the internet, and the court case starts with providing prior art, etc.

Best case for defendants, judge rules that the claims don't apply to internet video, then move to summary judgement or something like that.


The markman hearing could last a couple months.. who knows what fireworks may be fired off, but you can be sure that i will be reporting it!


Fight the Fuse!

>Judge James Ware

didnt he do the MS case? where i have heard his name..

I think he is the judge that handled the sex.com domain hijaacking case.



Fight the Cohen!

Strange how this has lost everyones interest.

People are reading the thread, just not posting.. since there isn't much to say except "go defendants"....



Fight the Lurkers!

I'll bump it ...........

btw great chatting to youtoday brand0n


:thumbsup


Lots of good stuff

Thanks for the update.

eat shit you dumbass.

Acacia rocks!

brand0n is another board poster.

i'm brandon (without the zero for the o)


:)



Fight the Confusion!

Go defendants. Glad someone is out there putting their balls and $$$ on the line.

Hope you time your sell order before everyone else dumps the stock on bad news.

Do you want me to give you advance notice before i post any info i get starting tomorrow on the case?


sike



Fight the Grade Skool!

Hmm, that's right next to me! I could go tell them to go fuck em selves in the ass!

jDoG

Thanks Brandon for all you've done.

Ignore pimpdog, he's prolly drinking.

I believe there will be some media there tomorrow.. you could run around with a GFY t-shirt and yell out 'Acacia Sux' ... maybe you'll get your 15 minutes of fame in this Acacia Saga story

:)


Fight the 14:59!

good luck at the hearing

Better yet, have them served with a suit at the hearing. I've seen that done.

gona give walmart legal, mcdonalds legal, 7-11 legal, mercedes legal and write a long letter to the ftc about your thieiving cigarette sales scam.

wannabe.

Food for thought...

The Milking Machine.
Some entity obviously owns the patent on the technology/machinery used for mechanically milking cows, right?
And manufacturers of milking machines likely have to pay a royalty to that entity.
But, do farmers have to pay the patent owner to USE these machines? NO.

And this is where ACACIA is fucked in the head, IMO. I as a content producer (hypothetically speaking) USE software to create streaming video; software I purchased from a vendor/manufacturer who in their product utilizes the technology in the patent. Using the Milking Machine scenario applied to this it would seem obvious to me that the companies that build software/hardware to create tools to stream video are liable to the patent royalties, but I as merely a consumer of said products am not.

Yes, go defendants!
:thumbsup

So, if Acacia does actually have the patent and it's upheld, then the software manufacturers are the ones who pay for the license, which then gets added to our cost of using said software. That makes sense to me.

Dear FTP, is there anything you DONT fight? :eek7

Fight the Fuse!
Fight the Cohen!
Fight the Lurkers!
Fight the Confusion!
Fight the Grade Skool!
Fight the 14:59!

This is lame, who the hell wants wants to give away more money? All the people who say Acacia is so great, so if I buy a patent for something you own tomarrow and tell you that you owe me 10% of your money you will give it to me just like that? Um.. okay. I all for NOT paying more.

Bump for hopefully fucking Acacia in the ass.

Yup, pretty much. IF the application of the patent to the Internet is upheld, and I have my doubts it will, then yes the manufacturers of software that utilizes the patent should be the ones held liable for royalties. And as with all other similar situations we the consumer will be passed on that royalty fee in the cost of consumption of the end product. But, the cost to us each would be diluted by the sheer numbers of end users/consumers.

Fight the Trickle Down! (Sorry, Brandon, I couldn't resist)

I don't fight for luv. :Graucho


Fight the Time-You-Took-To-Copy-Every-Tagline!

If the court finds the defendants to be infringing upon the patent (and assuming you have your umbrella out when the pigs start flying and dropping sh*t) , it would not make the software companies responsible for licensing the patent.


Software developers make the technology that this DMT patent requires. Any single piece of the process like the encoding or the streaming server, etc.. is not infringing.

The person that infringes is the one that takes content and uses technology and a network (ie. internet) to distribute that digital file to others (ie. webmasters).


It just so happens that all the major players that make software also use their own technology with serving up content, so in a round about way, the big software players would have to pay a license for the content they stream.


It is possible that the judge could rule that the terms used in the patent like "remote locations" and "storage library" are transferrable to the internet. This "victory" for Acacia is not bad news, it just means the judge has set a standard for what the words and definitions of the claims mean.

The next step would be to go to court and start presenting arguments and prior art.

If the judge rules that the words and definitions used by Acacia do not apply to the internet, then it would be a major blow to Acacia...since the defendants will most likely ask for a Summary Judgement hearing, and they go to court to get the non-infringing verdict.

A non-infringing verdict could mean that all websites that use audio/video would be free from Acacia, but cable/satellite would still have to deal with them.

And don't forget, that USA Video is out there eyeing all those that signed with Acacia.....

And lastly, let's not forget the companies that signed with Acacia.. it remains a curious point that when there is a non-infringement verdict, if they have to CONTINUE to pay the license, unless they breach contract and they have to go to court INDIVIDUALLY to get out of the contract.

There won't be a Fight the Legally Binding Agreement despite the patent found not to be applicalbe to the internet . com for those folks.



Fight the Long Posts!

As long as they are reading and supporting the IMPA then thats a good start.

Thanks for the explanation, FTP.....

As a writer, I appreciate long posts. :)

Good luck to all the anti-Acacia lawyers!

fight the power!

AVN summary of events leading up today:

http://www.avnonline.com/issues/2004...020504_6.shtml




Fight the Patent-Ya-Babeeee!

This is where I think the problem will be addressed. They will not win today. Real, Quicktime, and Microsoft are the ones that will have to pay. They are the ones that stream the data, in other words the software does the work, not the data. The data just sits there unless it is told what to do. The data is the content... the poke flicks.

yes, but data (content) is part of the process... so those companies don't infringe on the patent.. until they themselves apply content to their delivery mechanism (which they do).

And don't forget that this isn't just about streaming servers, an Apache HTTP server can deliver digital content, but Apache software is not infringing the patent.. it's the webmaster who uses Apache with digital A/V content.



Fight the Problems!

NPR ran radio story this morning about Acacia.

Spike and Berman interviewed:

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1647730


Mainstream is now very aware of this case.


Fight the Gagging when listening to Berman!

Good luck!

A quote from Berman from the NPR interview:

"We do believe that these patents are broad and are being widely infringed, and are strategy is, to frankly, dip our beak and just take a little bit of money from a lot of people and we would be prefectly satisfied."


Dip our beak?



:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh



Fight the Hysteria!

http://www.fightthepatent.com/v2/AcaciaSaga.html


This will be a running article... archiving all events related to the courtcase.. so for those interested, bookmark the article and you won't have to wade through the dribble to get to the drabble.

I'll try to update the thread with major news.. but first updates are done to the article.


Fight the Bookmarking!

As was posted in another thread... it is funny that NPR is streaming the audio story.. i wonder if they realize they are now infringing upon Acacia's Patent claims.



:)



Fight the Irony!