The insane spitfire video clip

On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 14:58:03 -0800, Jeff wrote:

Thats what their patent claims, so far, some of the biggest companies, Hustler,
wicked, Vivid, lodge net, and others, have signed their license agreement. After
our attorney reviewed the patents, we signed it also.

How long ago was this? Your attorney could have easily requested a
stay on the court date until the current lawsuit against Acacia is
settled (which will more than likley invalidate their patents).


Its no joke, they are
going after everyone, they have had the courts shut down alot of sites that
refused to pay licensing fee's.

Which is misleading, and almost makes it sound like Acacia acutally
presented a case in their favor, which is not the case.
The only time Acacia has won anything in court, was when the defendant
refused to appear.... and is not "a lot" of sites, just a handful run
by a few select companies.

If their pantent held *any* weight, companies like Yahoo, MS, AOL, etc
would be the targets.

Acacia definitely seems to be pros in this area... milking a puchased
pantent for all they can before the courts deem them invalid.

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:05:51 -0600, Do What? wrote
in Message-Id: :

Acacia definitely seems to be pros in this area... milking a puchased
pantent for all they can before the courts deem them invalid.

Aren't patents issued for the purpose of generating law suits? :-)

Larry Dighera wrote:

Aren't patents issued for the purpose of generating law suits? :-)

Certainly the Wright brother's patents were.

George Patterson
You can dress a hog in a tuxedo, but he still wants to roll in the mud.

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:05:51 -0600, Do What?
wrote:

On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 14:58:03 -0800, Jeff wrote:

Thats what their patent claims, so far, some of the biggest companies, Hustler,
wicked, Vivid, lodge net, and others, have signed their license agreement. After
our attorney reviewed the patents, we signed it also.

How long ago was this? Your attorney could have easily requested a
stay on the court date until the current lawsuit against Acacia is
settled (which will more than likley invalidate their patents).

Just to correct myself... there is no lawsuit against Acacia, but
there are finally a group of defendants (11) that are well prepared to
challenge the Acacia claim (something that has yet to be done).

Either way, one could make a very strong case for a stay until those
play out in the courts.

actually there are law suits against acacia by a couple of different companies. Not
directly against the DMT patents, but as a result of them and ongoings around them.

There is a group (whom I know personally and recently talked to on the phone) who has
been in litigation with acacia for awhile.
This isnt a new thing, its just recently they have been really pushing their license
thing. I think they will win, there is ALOT of people helping them find prior art. We
were first "asked" to sign their license agreement 3 months ago. The company in
litigation was first "ask" to sign it last year.

Do What? wrote:

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:05:51 -0600, Do What?
wrote:

On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 14:58:03 -0800, Jeff wrote:

Thats what their patent claims, so far, some of the biggest companies, Hustler,
wicked, Vivid, lodge net, and others, have signed their license agreement. After
our attorney reviewed the patents, we signed it also.

How long ago was this? Your attorney could have easily requested a
stay on the court date until the current lawsuit against Acacia is
settled (which will more than likley invalidate their patents).

Just to correct myself... there is no lawsuit against Acacia, but
there are finally a group of defendants (11) that are well prepared to
challenge the Acacia claim (something that has yet to be done).

Either way, one could make a very strong case for a stay until those
play out in the courts.

how long ago, last week was when we sent them the check.


Do What? wrote:

If their pantent held *any* weight, companies like Yahoo, MS, AOL, etc
would be the targets.

actually this was asked of them during a live interview, their response was the law
allows them certain latitude, they decided to go after websits because they can make
more money.
But remember they already signed lodgnet (the people who provide in-room movies to
hotels) and are trying to get money from Universities right now.

patent law suits are expensive, its not something you want to fight if you dont have
to.

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 17:51:28 -0800, Jeff wrote:

how long ago, last week was when we sent them the check.


Do What? wrote:

If their pantent held *any* weight, companies like Yahoo, MS, AOL, etc
would be the targets.

actually this was asked of them during a live interview, their response was the law
allows them certain latitude, they decided to go after websits because they can make
more money.

Yeah, after receiving my "notice", I've come across quite a bit of
more-than-interesting info about this whole ordeal.

One thing that really stood out was their Q3 conference call last
week.... one of the shareholder asked if there was any open
litigation. Acacia's response, "no"
Pretty bold to mislead shareholders... and while Im not securities
guru, is this not against the law?

Funny thing is, that neither my sites, nor the sites I link to violate
their patent.....

They have been sending this letter to sites that have shut down, sites that dont have
video and so on.
I may be able to direct you to alot of other information on acacia and the people who are
fighting it, but you seen to want to be anonymous on here for some reason and most of the
stuff on this I wont post to a newsgroup or on a msg board because believe it or not,
acacia reads some of it and some of it just dont need posted here.
shoot me an E-mail if you want

I just pulled this from a msg board of a guy who called them today:
-------------------------
After a 2nd phone conversation with those people, I was told the following:

Me:
Ok, now I have taken out the 23 links from my sites which led to videos. Can you send me
a letter stating that I am not infringing your so called patent?

Acacia:
No, that is not possible, you are linking to galleries which contain pictures and
banners, when those banners are clicked, they take you to sites which offer membership
for picture and video content.

Me:
You must be kidding me!!! I can't link to site or galleries with movies on it, and now
you claim I can't link to picture galleries which promote a sponsor which offers videos
and pics?????

Acacia:
That is correct.

Me:
Well, then I will put the movies links on my site and you'll see me in court.

END

Those Acacia people are incredible!!!!!

-------------------

Do What? wrote:

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 17:51:28 -0800, Jeff wrote:

how long ago, last week was when we sent them the check.


Do What? wrote:

If their pantent held *any* weight, companies like Yahoo, MS, AOL, etc
would be the targets.

actually this was asked of them during a live interview, their response was the law
allows them certain latitude, they decided to go after websits because they can make
more money.

Yeah, after receiving my "notice", I've come across quite a bit of
more-than-interesting info about this whole ordeal.

One thing that really stood out was their Q3 conference call last
week.... one of the shareholder asked if there was any open
litigation. Acacia's response, "no"
Pretty bold to mislead shareholders... and while Im not securities
guru, is this not against the law?

Funny thing is, that neither my sites, nor the sites I link to violate
their patent.....

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 01:26:03 -0800, Jeff wrote:
snippage: patents

Patents are becoming a real problem in the technology field. So many
patents with very little merit are being allowed to pass.

The intent of the patent system is to encourage innovation by granting
temporary monopolies. But the invention must be novel, and not obvious
to someone ordinary skilled in the art amongst other things.

The trouble is many software patents don't meet this test. This Acacia
one is just one of hundreds that are making software developers sigh
all over the world (well, all over the USA at least). Amazon, for
example, have a patent on buying stuff with one click - something
that is so obvious that many many web developers have simultaneously
and independently 'invented' it. Just Amazon patented it first, and
the patent examiners aren't sufficiently skilled (and don't have
sufficient time) to see that it's obvious to someone ordinarily
skilled in the art - or that it has prior art. Unfortunately once
a patent has been granted, it is so expensive to get it thrown out
that most companies choose to roll over like giant twinkies and
cough up the licensing money. Patents in the software world, far
from encouraging innovation, are stifling innovation. Not because
the patent laws are bad, but because the USPTO are more or less
rubber stamping obvious 'inventions'. It's virtually impossible
to write a program - even a simple shell script - without infringing
a meritless software patent.

At least the issue seems to be getting a bit of airtime outside the
software world now - and maybe some pressure will be forthcoming
to make it easier to throw out bad patents and raise the bar on
what can be patented.

Now European countries are headed down the same insane route. Let's
hope that patent offices in Europe hire people who can see obvious
things and throw them out, but I hold out very little hope indeed.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
Patents are becoming a real problem in the technology field. So many
patents with very little merit are being allowed to pass.

For what it's worth, it's not just the technology field.

A recent example in the aviation industry is the ridiculous "spar doubler"
patent filed for and granted to Aerofab, the company that (at the time) made
Lake aircraft. That patent is under review currently, and one hopes the
patent office will see the error of their ways, but for now it's still in
force.

As near as I can tell, the patent office has decided that it is too much
trouble to do any work in evaluating a patent application for anything other
than having the right basic format. They appear to be figuring that if a
patent is invalid, someone will find out later in a lawsuit.

Of course, lawsuits are expensive, often much more expensive than just
rolling over on a threatened lawsuit and paying whatever extortion the
patent holder asks for. IMHO, the patent office is abdicating their
responsibility to the public, and in the process creating a significant
economic overhead on all variety of industries through their lackadaisical
approach to patent approvals.

My apologies if this post in any way brought the thread back to being
on-topic, or nearly so.

Pete

p.s. What's up with people still using the obsolete "rec.aviation"
newsgroup? Or the .misc, for that matter? Who reads .misc?