Acacia patent-infringement letters to colleges
 

The labels and movie folks aren't the only venal acts around. The Acacia Research Corporation has sent patent-infringement letters to colleges across the country offering to "overlook past infringement" if they'll sign on to "a special royalty rate of two percent of gross revenue from each online course that includes digital audio and/or video content", reports the the Chronicle for Higher Education.

p2pnet.net

Maybe now the authorities will sit up and take notice. But if anyone knows of prior art colleges will or they will find it.

That was a VERY bad move on ACACIA's part.

Most elite schools refused to block napsters, and those such as Stanford, Harvard and Princeton have quite formidable patent libraries themsevles.

It was wise to go after porn...not so wise going after schools.

You never know what law professor might decide to make the focus of his second semester class defeating your royalty stream...

:2 cents:

they have no other choice! bills are piling up, investors are getting ancy and porn shops only raked in 19,000 bucks in the last quarter.

wow I cant wait till they all get one.
This will make for an interesting twist in the acacia extortion racket....

they should demand it also from Harvard law school who has online streaming courses :1orglaugh

I know...they are leaving me scratching my head...

One of you bright sparks get their email address and send them the threads. As IMX said would make a nice case study.

It seems maybe for Europeans it will not apply.

http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?...58&area =news

But to be honest I'm too sick to understand it.

sure it can be done. Not that long time ago i was researching the possibility of a mba through harvard online system. I remember their courses are streaming. They have some sample courses you can watch and obviously they should receive an acacia package as well. hehehe

Maybe now we will get the help that we have been asking for. When I first got something from them I mailed as many of the tech universities that I could think of. I catually got a response from one that said that it was not there problem and would not get involved. But I should feel free to come and go through their library...


Ha, now they have to do it to protect themsleves.!!!

Well get in touch with them and ask if they have been served yet. Ask them if they know about it and what they are going to do about it now Acacia are serving colleges.

Again ask them if they got their package yet and if they want to join IMPA

This thread is more important then a guy with a hard on in the sea. So why does that get more posts?

Now that i think about it,

I took an "Online" college course

and it had streaming videos in it,

It's all the closet gays who love to look at cock while mouthing off that gay people are scum. The board's full of them :)

Ya - that would be good.
Harvard Law just acquired the patent on RSS 2.0 syndication a "free speech" syndication tool. There's some boys Acacia should not mess with.

You still not banned?

Damn :321GFY

You're still thread jacking ...
damn

Here is the actual article regarding Acacia and the colleges.


http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2003/10/2003100301t.htm

Friday, October 3, 2003
Company's Letters to Colleges Say Its Patents Cover Streaming Media for
Courses
By SCOTT CARLSON

A California company is telling colleges and universities that it owns
patents related to audio and video streaming used for online courses, and
that it is entitled to a portion of revenues from such courses.

Administrators at some of the colleges the company has contacted say they
are studying its demands, but they have not yet agreed to licensing deals.

The company, Acacia Research Corporation, holds five U.S. patents and 17
international patents in digital-media-transmission technology. The patents
cover not technological details but concepts like streaming audio and
digital signals on demand from servers to users' machines.

Acacia has sent patent-infringement letters to an unknown number of
colleges across the country, offering to overlook past infringement in
exchange for the institution's signing on to "a special royalty rate of two
percent of gross revenue from each online course that includes digital
audio and/or video content."

The letters close with a stern warning: "If you continue using our patented
technology, but choose not to obtain a license from Acacia, we reserve the
right to seek the maximum amount of damages allowable by law and an
injunction prohibiting you from continued use of our patented technology
without a license."

Seton Hall University is one of the latest to receive a notice from Acacia.
"They're definitely after us," said Stephen G. Landry, the university's
chief information officer. "We get $100-million in revenue from our
courses, any of which can use digital media on the Web site -- downloadable
images, video, sound. In fact, we have had a project to encourage faculty
to record their lectures and put them on a server."

The university has already licensed the streaming programs through
companies like RealNetworks, Mr. Landry said. "I don't think that the
university is going to be inclined to sign over $2-million a year to Acacia
for this license agreement," he added.

Robert A. Berman, senior vice president of business development at Acacia,
said that the company had sent out about 100 letters to various businesses
and organizations that use streaming technology, including colleges.
Through letters, negotiations, and court judgments, he said, the company
has already gotten some 40 adult-entertainment sites to share a portion of
their revenues from video streaming. Record companies, as well as companies
that offer movies in hotel rooms, have also signed up, he said.

Mr. Berman said that until 2002, the patents were owned by another company,
Greenwich Information Technologies, which was purchased by Acacia. The
patents will expire in 2011.

"The e-learning community is just starting to incorporate online-learning
technology into their curriculum," he said. "We think that on an ongoing
basis, these schools and private companies are going to be using this
technology more and more. We are offering them an opportunity now to
license our technology at reasonable introductory rates. That offer won't
last forever."

He said that the 2-percent rate was negotiable if a college was not making
money on its courses. "If people have questions about our company or our
patents, we welcome them to call us," Mr. Berman said. "This is not a
shakedown. This is not an adversarial process."

Mr. Berman said letters had gone out to colleges of all types and sizes,
although he named only DeVry University and Capella University among those
that were sent letters.

Among the colleges that have received letters from Acacia is Eastern
Michigan University. Ward Mullens, associate director of communications for
the university, said the university's lawyers were reviewing the letter and
mulling their next move.

Bill Simpson, president of John Wood Community College, in Illinois, also
got a letter. "It's before my legal counsel," he said. "I'm waiting to see
what other colleges do and see how they are responding. I'm not sure that
we are liable." Mr. Simpson said he had met with officials at Southeastern
Community College, in Iowa, which also got a letter, to discuss how to
respond.

Virgil Varvel, a computer-assisted-instruction specialist for the
University of Illinois system, said that his university had not received a
letter as far as he knew, but that he would dread getting one. The
university doesn't charge for some of the online content it offers.

Online courses are "already a borderline return of investment," he said.
"We would have to stop doing what we're doing."

Stepping up the heat just a bit i see :BangBang:

bump ...
I need to read this.

You can not patent the idea of time compression.
As it has existed for decades.

Increasing the speed of information transmission is NOT a new idea. What fucking planet does Acacia get off on?

Great work Charly! Thanks for the informative post!:Graucho

I hope these small colleges that were sent notices contact the larger colleges and get the ball rolling.

Interesting to see how they reference the adult sites, radio and video on demand people as already signing.

Thanks again Charly!

tell the whole world how much money the college makes from the courses. Acacia prolly started drooling after that comment

I'd had to bitch slap this mofo

Yes - good work Charly.
we can not let this issue die.

According to my understanding of Acacia issues ...

Acacia purposely targeted the Adult Industry first.

Now lets have at it.
With Harvard Law.

Having to pay someone to transmit moving pictures is a fundamental freedom of speech issue.

I WILL NOT REPORT TO ACACIA!!!

Someone really needs to contact Harvard Law and other top law schools, there's no question. If I wasn't so lazy I'd do it myself. :thumbsup

When is Tech TV going to do a full story on this! Would make a great story!

Can't wait until the Ivy League schools pick up on it. Hundreds of law students looking for a nice little break.

Nobody gives a shit about you or your site just go and die in a dark little corner somewhere please without leaving any type of note as to where your location is so that your rotting remains can be devoured by swarms of feeding red ants :321GFY

Would you shut the fuck up and stop ruining a good thread for once?

Say please first :Graucho

It appears your desire to share this news got the better of your judgement, charly. Certainly hope lensman doesn't get a C&D because of it.

Whoopsie.

:(

Yes- definitely a "whoopsie" :(

And you know, it was just a few months ago that a group formed here that decided to take down another message board for exactly this kind of behavior. Remember- "<I>they be stealing our shit man, let's go get 'em!</I>" For those that weren't around then, just do a forum search on the term "necrohiphop".

But the reaction seems to be a bit different when one of our own steals from a pay site and posts it on our forums.

Where's the "GFY Posse" when it comes to GFY doing the content theft? Where are the ethics that we forcefeed others when it comes to our own behavior?

But, most importantly, where are the righteous webmasters that actually take pride in what they do?

:GFYBand

razors vs lawyers.

:glugglug

I have been in contact with the CTO of Seton Hall U... he is very aware of my website, and has passed my info on to their General COunsel, who is currently looking to respond to Acacia's infringement claims.

Seton Hall has alot at stake since they do alot with distance learning and video streaming... my guess is they will fight.

Fight the Patent!