|
Written by Brandon Shalton 20-Oct-2004
Article: Hotspot Operatos Face New Patent Fee Demand Slashdot forum posts with potential prior art references Link to Acacia's Service Provider Agreement for the licensing of the patent Scan of a "marketing" letter sent to an "infringer". Top | Bottom
|
Rocky Would be Proud For those that have been following the Acacia Saga with me, you know that Acacia came out with Round 1 of their business model to license IP with the V-Chip patent. After convincing many TV manufacturers to pay them over $25M in licensing fees, Sony faught them in court, and won! The court found Sony to be not-infringing. Round 2 for Acacia is the DMT patent, the broad and ridiculous interpretation of a patent that they claim is the foundation patent to downloading/streaming audio/video from a (web) server. The amount of prior art is larger than the mound of evidence that was found against OJ, so the outcome of current lawsuits against Adult Entertainment websites and Cable industry should be quite different (if the patent claims don't stick, you must acquit). Round 3 has been looming for a while, and now it is here, in the form a of a patent that was acquired by one of their early liensees of the DMT patent. Acacia has acquired a patent from Lodgenet that they describe as the "HotSpot" patent, that claims ownership to the idea that when a computer is trying to connect to a network (via wireless or wired), that the system detects they are new and don't have an IP, and redirects them to a page where they can signup to get an authorized IP. The interpretations are probably including additional broader claims. To the left are some links to learn more about the latest scheme.
|
