Acacia Update 10-18-07
 

Acacia continues its long retreat from the Patents it has asserted against the defendants in the Adult Media Defense Group. Acacia has agreed that under the court's construction all claims of the '702 patent are invalid. As to the second patent in the case, the '992 patent, under the court's construction, we believe claims 1-18 are also invalid. During summary judgment briefing, Acacia appeared to agree with our position. Now Acacia has agreed to dismiss claim 24 of the '992. The Court is currently working on a fourth claim construction order, which we believe will bring the claim construction process to an end and permit the group to file motions requesting the remaining claims be declared invalid. While Acacia will undoubtedly appeal Judge Ware's claim construction orders, we are confident that the appellate court will agree with Judge Ware's analysis and affirm his rulings thereby bringing the case to an end.

Very Nice!

Thanks to Homegrown, Lightspeed Cash, and the others who have continued to pour money into this. In fact, you should post up a list of everyone who donated.

Keep up the fight!

I hear they have a handful of other patents that they've acquired... and are going after a lot of mainstream companies for them all now.

Most notably... tabs. Originally owned by Xerox, Acacia now has Apple paying royalties just to use tabs.

Regardless of what else Acacia may be up to by way of further attempting to screw us over, I'll take this good news as is.

Thanks for the update.

Great update. Gotta commend the group that fought them and was lucky to be involved in a few of the sessions during the start up of the defense. It was apparent from the start this group of companies were dead serious and meant business. Great job.

How quickly we forget the companies that fought these dickheads and which ones settled with them and writing them a big check.

Can the companies who had to pay legal fees counter sue for damages?

Keep up the great work and Homegrown as expected since day1, talks the talk and walks the walk :thumbsup

Unfortunately probably not - which is something we just have to live with. The good news is that I am confident Acacia and any other patent trolls out there will think twice before they mess with our industry.

Holy shit, you mean some adult companies are going to actually prove that coming together can actually accomplish something?


Way to go Far-L and the rest of the group that banded together on this. :thumbsup

We never really got any donations except from a few small amateur sites that I don't even think are in business any more. A lot of people claimed they would help but at the end of the day did nothing except sit back and watch how we fared. We also had people like Ron Levi who claimed he had supported us but actually had not. However, there is one company, ATK, which did join the group and has put up money from day one even though they were not getting sued and they deserve very special respect imo even though they have never asked or expected any recognition at all.

do people get refund for paying them???

I got to hang with him last time they were here in L.A. I can see that in him. :thumbsup

lol, absolutely not.

Every miserable company that foolishly settled with them as a "smarter business decision" can look forward to paying for the rest of the life of the patent. Only if the patents are completely invalidated would they get off from having to pay, but the way things are going, imo at least, Acacia is backing off of those claims against us before we hit that point and we will be out of it on non-infringement while they will still have so-called valid patents. In that way they would still be able to "keep a dog in the fight"; everyone can say whatever about Acacia but no one can say they aren't wily.

VERY nice... props to all of you guys that put up a fight...

Oh.. what was the rough cost of all that litigation?

Thanks for the update, I was actually wondering what was up concerning their claims a couple of weeks ago. Timely post :)

Can't answer that because that is private information to each company. However, I can say that it was affordable and less than what we would've anticipated paying for fees according to their schedule over the period and of course has an end in sight if we win which is way better than those that settled and will continue to pay and possibly be getting more rate increases.

Just one more reason why I was so happy to be able to join the team. :thumbsup

Can we get a list of the companies who did settle with them?

Great news Far-L:thumbsup Are you still going to go after torrent sites?

I would prefer to let others come forward with that information if you don't mind.

Consider that Amazon's one click patent is potentially in the trash, anything is possible at this point. There seems to a the start of a strong breeze blowing against such general / and / or obvious patent contructs.

Amazon One Click gets the Chop: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...tory/WBmingram

Bottom feeder patent extenders are likely to find themselves spending tons of money in court only to find out their patents aren't worth the paper they photocopied them on to.

Please post all the company who fight about that shit and I will promote them right now. Good work guys

great news. All the companies that settled with them are probably cringing right about now.

Can you ya guys now file a suit on them for damages?

Didnt like Video secrets get a cease and decist for a while or something early in the case? I would think they could file for damages.

I know one guy that basically told acacia to fuck off and that if Acacia did force them to shut down he would file a suit on them for damages.

Acacia looked the other way after realising how fucked they would be if the video service would been disrupted.

I know I passed on info, past samples, and what cash I could back then. Yeah I am small but I am still in biz. I think I made it as person, though it could of been through my free content site or one of my other sites at the time. I just wish I could of given much more, I feel guilty.

AEBN donated a shit load of cash. :winkwink:

My ref baby

http://www.aebn.net/index.cfm?refid=AEBN005279

Yes Kim took the treat very serious even though he was never sued. He saw it as a major issue and set a bad precedent that affected everyone. He put his money where his mouth is, and I got nothing but the utmost respect for how he tackled this issue.

Congrats and thank you Far-L for being one of the few true leaders in our industry.

You can say that again.

Way to go guys and thank you for the update Far-L

BRAVO to the Anti-Acacia Warriors!!!!!!

Good people fighting the good fight for everyone's benefit. The HomeGrown family lives by a shining set of principles and that's why I just love them to death.

Job well done! Thank you from all of us.

Brad

First off, many thanks to all the complimentary comments by people whom I have the utmost respect for.

Next, many apologies for anyone like ASM who contributed even in a time when their capacity to do so was limited but who gave what they could, you all do deserve special thanks as well and I am sorry if by not giving your name and program specific recognition I am inadverently diminishing your contributions.

When this all finishes, I hope not only to air out the dirty laundry but also to put a special shine and brightness on those that helped along the way.

Oh, the irony. Apple are now paying thieves royalties for something they initially stole from someone else. :1orglaugh

You have zero apologies needed to me Far L or any of us smaller companies that stood up and helped with the fight as far as I am concerned. You went above and beyond what should be expected of any one company for this industry. In no way does it diminish our contributions at all.

Just like you, we all did it for the industry. Though it is a shame that so many did nothing at all. As Ai3rk said about an industry coming together to fight something, I wish for your purse strings that it was indeed true. However I am sure that the future as you put it will show how little some helped and even worse who claimed they did to get some exposure then never did in reality.

I also figure you may want to give a special little thank you to Fight This Patent (another user here) who did collect and organize a great deal of information and time to say the least.

I still just wish I was able to contribute more, and since this is still ongoing Far L if you contact me I would love to give a little more even though it would not be much due to my current bills. If you can not use it now, I am sure you all will take on something else for the industry in the near future. You forever will be one of my favorite programs, people, and companies ever.

Congrats and thanks to all the companies that fought them.

awesome news Farrell! HGC takes NO prisoners!

Very nice work Far-L - I'm sure others 'small' affiliates that got that goon letter will agree with me when I say, Thank-you for speaking out for all of us who wouldn't have been able to afford any legal battle with something of that scale.

I, for one, appreciate it!

This is not the kind of case where that would happen. They say we infringe. We say we don't. A judge decides who is right based on a careful examination of mostly technical minutia - which is part of why patent attorneys make the big bucks because it is a highly specialized field of law.

Acacia's business model was essentially to try and grab as many licenses as possible from people that they figured would find it cheaper to just pay rather than fight. Unfortunately for them they picked an industry of iconaclastic mostly self made indie entrepeneurs that knew a heck of a lot more about the technology than they appeared to and had the resources and inclinations to prove it.

Thanks for fighting the fight for all of us.

:thumbsup

Great job Farrell. You are the one of the best guys I have had ever had the pleasure of meeting. Everyone in this business owes you and the people at Homegrown for all the hard work you have done, in this case.

Take Care

Porno Dan

Nice.. glad I was able to dig in and research some stuff to give you guys back in the day, hopefully at some point the stuff I gave helped in the massive puzzle to invalidate their claims..

Thank you for getting that infamous "low hanging fruit" quote out of Berman - that certainly riled folks up and made a lot more people aware when this all started...

They have teamed up with Microsoft and are attacking Linux companies now (Red Hat and Novell). But their ultimate strategy is to eventually attack any business or government that even uses linux and target them for patent extortion.

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS2013674721.html

I guess they are moving onto greener pastures.

They are pure scum. Patent troll company.. all they do is collect patents and sue people.

They have a subsidiary called "IP Innovation" that is now suing Red Hat software and Novell.

Can read up on it at groklaw.net if anyone is interested. Some pretty big conspiracy theories going on (the plausible kind, not the tinfoil hat kind).

The brilliant part about it is, that Microsoft can keep their hands "clean" so to speak. MS doesnt go after these companies themselves because of the mutually assured destruction scenario. Other companies would be able to leverage their patents against MS, if MS leveraged their patents against them. But with the shell of a company, Acacia, acting on their behalf, theres no way for the other companies to damage MS's patent portfolio, or leverage their patents against them.

Score a few points for the low hanging fruit. Nice job guys.

Fuck Berman and the other scumbags at that company.

I don't know about brilliant, Ballmer "predicted" the lawsuit 2 days before it was public and Acacia added two scumbag executives from Microsoft to their company roster. That doesn't strike me as being overly discrete, but probably discrete enough for wall street though.

Story on XBiz - http://www.xbiz.com/news/web/85508

Can you guys give me more info on the backstory? I'm currently taking an IT law course, so patents are one thing we study...