I just realized something about Acacia
 

Acacia is on the verge of becoming one of the richest media organizations on the planet.

In the near future, Acacia may be in a position to receive a monetary percentage of every single multimedia broadcast in existence.

Think about Tivo. Think about digital cable-on-demand....

All these technologies are eventually going to be coming from one pipe....

And guess who gets a piece?

That is why they have some many investors putting money in. It is a controled gamble. If they win, investors will turn millions into billions over night.

Fucking Billions.

This is real multi level marketing in action. Its a guaranteed win.

THEY WILL HAVE A PERCENTAGE OF EVERY FUCKING BROADCAST

If someone doesn't take them out by then.

:1orglaugh

I would say it is quite a risk as if they lose thier patents the stock price isn't going anywhere. however if they get away with it...... wow

I love domain names with acacia in them :Graucho

Billions.

Would it be wrong if I were to buy Acacia Research stock ? :(

yes, it's a front for Al Qaeda I have read.

... no, as a matter of the fact I am currently taking a look at:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ACTG&d=t
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=CBMX&d=t

... didn´t it say fund ??

real networks provides streaming video as well and i dont think they'll be an easy target.

These guy's fake patent needs to be stomped on.

LOL I read it on GFY, not Yahoo ;)

It's a very long way from being a certainty yet.

From CBS Market Watch
So when *will* they be challenged in court? When are the Homegrown etc. challenges scheduled to take place?

I know that courts frequently smack down cases due to inaction.
For example, let's say you've got a big plot of land and your neighbor goes ahead and mows a chunk of it every few days and sets up a picnic table there, etc. You allow this to go on for years.
Then your wife and the neighbor's wife get into a spat and you take the neighbor to court for trespassing on your land.

The court would look at the amount of time in which you took no action against the neighbors for their activities, and by way of inaction, you allowed them to continue. If it went on long enough, then the court can rule that you set a precedent that the neighbor had due right to use that land even though you owned it and your tresspass charges are ruled invalid.
In some cases that I've read about, the court has actually ruled that the piece of land in question be awarded to the defendant, since he had been mowing it, using it, and taking care of it for so many years.

Acacia has been sitting on these patents for 13 years without doing anything - allowing, by their inaction, the technology to be used freely. Wouldn't that follow the same precedent as above?

Also, I'm curious if IMPA has contacted Microsoft and Real and tried to get them involved, since they are using those companies' technologies to stream (unless they're doing purely mpeg transmissions) and these challenges from Acacia basically say that this technology is illegal. That involves M$ and Real by way of association.
It shouldn't be necessary to wait for Acacia to go after M$ and Real Networks (which they won't do until they've got a long list of companies who have already bowed down to them and who set a precedent of "these companies recognize the legality of our claims")... the defendants should be able to bring in M$ and Real because it's their technology that is being used to deploy the streaming, the format for the videos, etc.

Microsoft and Real have nothing to do with this at this point. Acacia's patents are for video transmission on the Internet, the tools/software used to do it aren't important. Microsoft and Real will come into this when they are sued, not for their software, but for transmitting video on the Internet.

Excellent post.

I don't think them being "purely mpeg transmissions" lets them be exempt from the claims does it?

I didn't think this only applied to streaming media. From what I've read it applies to downloaded audio/video too.

... and doesn't mpeg have their own patents?

Does this patent apply only to real time streaming video?

For example, can Acacia try to get you to buy a license from them if all your video is downloadable to the users hard drive, then the user uses Media Player...etc. to play the video from their hard drive.

i think it covers downloadable video files as well, not just streaming. that's the crazy part, streaming i wouldn't be shocked to hear somebody believed they had a patent on that. But they don't own MPEG video compression, or any other video format. They are contending that their patent also covers downloading any type of video file from the Internet. Crazy.

Wow...ALL video?

Hum...since nobody seems to be claiming a patent on .jpg/images downloads, I now hereby claim FULL RIGHTS to ALL images downloads.

Look out...cause...I'll be comin' for your ass! :winkwink:

lets see what ted turner has to say about that!

ted turner is far from the wealthiest person in the media.

This has already been done by a company similar to Acasia, but was fought down by the courts.
Was a huge and long fight and they almost succeded!

There is a company (German I believe?) who owns the patent on CD technology. They get a small royalty as far as I am aware when CDs are made. I'd have to find the article I read about it, but it was in relation to this case.

Patents and trademarks can be challenged directly, like Acacia's V-chip patent was.

Acacia has a recent history of ripping people off, hence a 10.8 million settlement that was handed down AGAINST their biotech wing by a company they apparently stole either ideas or technology from.

They made $800k+ last year, down from 24 MILLION the year prior.

I can't see this company going far and I can't see intelligent investors getting in this late in the game. Their shareholders are allegedly trying to stage a takeover as well. I would if the company was valued so horribly and had taken a 3000% hit.

Read that Forbes article, that's where I got the most recent info on the company itself, prior to that all I had was past statute from other similar cases.

They say that the patent office is millions under-funded every year, horribly understaffed, and the approach they take in many cases is to issue patents on things with the assumption that if they are too broad and ridiculous they will simply be challenged and struck down. This would be one of those obvious cases.

And Microsoft and Silicon Valley have gone to bat for smaller folks, they went in front of the Supreme Court vs. the other media companies on recent copyright extension rulings (Disney just bought themselves another few decades on Mickey). They might play ball, so might Real, you never know till you try. Many of those guys have their hearts and heads in the right place, i.e. Yahoo.

Thats the point of going after porn first. Once they have a judgement for the patents (because the jury may not want to award a victory to a group of pornographers) they can go after the larger entities.