- FightThePatent Articles on Acacia located under Articles section

 

- Acacia Home Page

- Great overview article on the issues

- Acacia Targets

- Summary of Acacia and its intent

- Wired.com article

- Letter from Acacia to RadioIO.com

- Acacia's Latest Financial Statements

-Acacia's Tactics - warning: Arrogance Alert



Acacia Research Corporation subsidiary Acacia Media Technologies Corporation acquired several patents and filed additional patents that covers the concept of “streaming audio and media”. The US Patent Office granted the first patent in 1991 with subsequent additional patents since then.


Their patents were broadly written that covers the following process:

Any type of content (audio, video) that is digitized with some kind of compression, then stored on a server, with retrieval through satellite, phone lines (and internet), with playback on a PC has been patented by them.

In more technical terms used by Acacia's claims: The process of storing compressed video in a libary for distribution over a distributed network (optionally at the request of the remote user)

Their “invention” was based on the idea that back then, it would take too long to have to wait for a video tape of some footage to be received via mail or by picking it up. They looked into their crystal ball and saw the future. They believed that the digital means of distributing video footage would be novel and allow people in remote locations to view previously recorded material on a PC.

The US Patent Office thought this was an original idea and granted them the patent. It was not until 2002 that Acacia popped on to the scene by informing Adult websites that they must pay them a license fee (based on a percentage of gross revenue) or be sued to shutdown.

While Acacia is currently getting press about targeting the Adult Industry, all websites should be concerned, because by the language of their patents and their litigous intents, they seek to make all websites pay a license fee for the use of "digital audio and video".

Articles written for FightThePatent.com pertaining to Acacia can be found in the Articles secion.

 


copyright 2003-2004, FightThePatent.com