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Acacia Steps Up Content-Transfer Patent Claims
MarkRH writes "Over at ExtremeTech we've got an in-depth story on the 20-odd suits being filed against the online porn industry by Acacia Research Corp., which has been previously covered on Slashdot. Now, several online porn companies are forming an association called IMPA (the 'Internet Media Protective Association'). We sat in on conference calls held by the industry, and interviewed Acacia executives. Bottom line: the porn industry is just the beginning."
Is there anything porn Can't do?
Fight the government, clean the tubes, sounds like a full day for me.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
there seems to be something simply wrong with an alliance in the porn industry.....the Christian right is gonna have a fit. might make for some entertaining news...
rainman
... Ironic to me at least. The MPAA claims that video over the net has to be locked up in a chastity belt in order to survive. Yet, the porn industry has been able to thrive even in a highly saturated market.
It'd suck if this caused a damaging blow to the porn industry. It's probably the best proof out there that the internet *is* a place where people can make money with content without having to use DRM.
"When you say 'low hanging fruit', yes, it makes business sense for us to pursue an industry that's making money,'" said Robert Berman, senior vice president and general counsel at Acacia. "They've been doing it for years."
Whoa... throw that one on the bloopers real...
--contact the big guys yourself. If these guys get an court settlement test cases in their favor, it's going to cost a lot of the big guys serious folding money to fight the case themselves. whereas-if you can convince them to help you fight your relatively small case NOW, they can potentially save BIG BUCKS later. That's the best idea I can think of right now. These guys are fishing, but they will start taking people to court, and bet a nickle that they have a tame judge's area picked out where to file in. That's just a logic train, in war, the dude who picks the battle and terrain and goes first has the upper hand right off the bat. I haven't looked at any of the patents yet though, so no idea if their claims have any merit, but potentially this is bigger than the e-commerce patent fights if what they say is true. Just think of real player and quicktime and windows media player stuff, it would appear that all of those efforts are in violation potentially. I mean, transmitting digital content on wires? Say whut? That's a very, very broad avenue for "the internet". You might have difficulty though seeing as how you have a porn site, could be none of the big guys would want to be seen publically as "in favor of" your ....uhhh... artistic efforts on the net. In that case, seek contributions from like minded webmasters and hosts from this "industry" that will be similarly affected. There's thousands of them, a few bucks apiece donated might be prudent.
I imagine all these parties have employees who read slashdot, so they will see this thread. good luck.
In aggregate, these guys should have the money to defeat these 'patent' claims.
Geezz... A guy can't sit in the privacy in his own home and watch porn and plan terriorst attacks on third world nations in peace anymore. Next they'll copy protect all my DVDs, wire tap the internet, and install the same operating system on every PCs.
*pisssstt*"They are all ready doing that."
D'Oh!
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
They need to form alliances with sister organizations such as the International Petroleum Jelly Manufacturing Consortium and the Repetitive Stress Disorder Sufferer's Association.
Best Windows Freeware
This company is looking to legitimize the patent by going after the shady companies which as we all know are destroying the immortal souls of kids everywhere. How can you not love them? They're fighting to keep your kids safe from nipples!
Now they'll have the parents and politicans and whatever on their side, and perhaps somehow make people believe that going along with this patent scheme is great for the moral future of a terrorist-free America... and then there would be no reason not to go after fortune 500 companies which don't much care for lawsuits but have enough money to license any patent, no matter how preposteriorous.
I thought the porn industry had already united under the Organization for Regulating Growth and Youth protection.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
now we get to side with the pR0n industry. I guess lame ass patents transcend most of the normal things that the average /.'er dislikes (M$, Sony, et al).
When is the USPTO going to realize that there is a significant problem with patents and how they are applied to technology and do a major overhaul of the entire system. Is there a group that is working on getting this pushed through?
"Now, several online porn companies are forming an association called IMPA (the 'Internet Media Protective Association')
Is this the anti-RIAA group?
Maybe we can get an expansion of this group from a couple of seedy websites to include such illustrious sites as Censorware.org. Too bad Censorware.org is still being held by someone named Micheal in a bitter disputer between this Michael and everyone else in the old Censorware.org group.
this is a blow to porn industry!
Now they have to transfer the movies thru the "traditional" way. Video tapes, and DVDs
It should've been Protecting Internet Media Porn. I wonder if there is still time to change it.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Only I wonder who will be getting the said "offer". After all, organized crime is increasingly involved with internet porn, especially pay sites.
So Acacia may just get a lil visit from da boys if they keep this up and sent a bill to the wrong people.
In this case, we can only hope that is what happens.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
I forsee in five years World War III will start as a feud between warring organizations. IMPA, RIAA, and MPAA will start a colossal flame war online against each other that will result in full scale nuclear annihilation. I mean, if these people are capable of doing everything they claim, then what's a few nukes?!
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Vlad,
By posting this, you broke your club's rule. No Twinkies for you, fatty.
During the adult industry's conference call, lawyers expressed hope that these media giants might provide "back channel" support, such as the results of previous "prior art" searches in an attempt to defeat the Acacia patents.
Hmm... provide back channel support support to the porn industry.
Also, you realize this means someone at Arcadia had the job of looking at porn sites to track down sites to sue? Get paid to surf porn. That's my dream job. Plus if they win, they get to audit the porn companies
I have blog like everyone else
Some bright young upstart that owns an American company filed a patent for "evacuation of liquid into a self cleaning porcelain container".
I had the misfortune to ask them where the bathroom was since I was desperate for a piss.
The lawsuit is going to take ages! I can't wait that long!
If I piss myself I'll have to pay for a licence to wash my trousers at the laundromat else I'll be in violation of the "clean garments by watching them spin round and round in a drum with hydrogen dioxide and sodium sterate" patent.
In soviet russia, I wouldn't have this problem I'm sure.
Do they piss on me there?
It seems to me that the fruit higher up should see how this is going to go. If they don't hang together they will assuredly all hang separately.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
We can deal with other "Digital Transmission" violations as we get to them.
-Brenthow can we lose?
The Porn industry has lots of money to defend itself with.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
I can already imagine the following:
Hate me!
It's a multi BILLION dollar industry. Some of the porn companies have piles of cash that are too large to shake a stick at.
And they have lawyers.
Bye bye, Acacia.. heh. Smacked down like a little bitch in "Bob's Bondage Barn Volume 95"
Really says it all, doesn't it? That's the strategy of all of these patent claims: Comapnies that can handle the fees will settle because it is easier, and possibly cheaper. Companies that cannot will either simply bow out without firing a shot, or will be outspent by the now successfully revenue generating lawsuit machine. Plus, although a company settling and agreeing to play the patent fee doesn't set a legal precedent, it has to sway the courts somewheat if the lawers can argue that N multi-million dollar corporations are paying the fees.
I for one hope the adult companies fight this one and win. If they do, perhaps people will stop buying these absurd patents solely for the revenue lawsuits can generate.
(email addr is at acm, not mca)
We are Number One. All others are Number Two, or lower.
--The Sphinx
How many companies does this make that own all technology involved in the internet? At least 50. Why can't they sue each other, decide who holds the valid patents, and THEN sue websites.
This kind of stuff scares the hell out of me. Between 'loosly defined' patent enforcement and lawsuits that exist just to pay lawyers. This is the kinda stuff George Orwell warned you about (I dont think even he saw this comming).
Having a hard time taking down you local dictatorship? Try taking one down thats got laywers instead of militia.
Looks like we found the answer to today's Ask Slashdot:
Sometimes it appears like the U.S. is losing its edge in technology. Well, I was wondering what the Slashdot community at large thinks is wrong (or right) with the U.S. and technological innovation?"
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
You tell em.. they are gonna have to pry Jenna Jameson out of my warm greasy hand!
Pages 2 and 3 are also only one page long each, but if you consider them collectively, then it's a bit more substantial.
Thing is IF they were to win this battle (acacia not the porn industry) where would they drawn the line? So many differnt people acording to their claims are infringing on their patents Nasa for one, all major internet news sources stream content over the internet too so where do you stop? Do you sue the government for infringing on your patents? Take down the news Media? This is a pretty good example of why the government should do some major changes on how patents work so they don't get abused like this.
Anyways thats my two cents let the down-modding beginClick "next" at the bottom of the article it goes on for 3 pages total.
"sometimes it really does pay to read!"
I'm surprised that Acacia actually seems to have the balls to go through with their threats to bring this to court. It would only take one ruling that the patent is overly broad and inapplicable to ruin their business plan forever.
Threatening to sue is a great way to make money, because there's very little expense and great potential for return involved. (It's like a meatspace equivalent to email spamming.)
But actually suing people is a much more risky business plan. You can never be sure that the men and women on the jury are going to act in the best interest of your bottom line.
>>Online porn providers represent an ideal target, executives at Acacia say
Why, because they're profitable?
Not that I agree with Arcadia's belief that it owns those patents, but they shouldn't be single-ing out a particular industry. They should be going after everyone, not just the adult firms.
It sounds like gold-digging to me. Perhaps they should wait until their patent claims are considered legally valid before they try to strong arm anyone.
Huh?
http://www.lectlaw.com/def/l056.htm
i um .nsf/articles/5731FF9F4372B6ED85256B43006EA07D?Ope nDocument
or better
http://www.zurichre-na.com/web/converium/conver
Esentially, if you knew about it in 91, you can't wait till now to go after royalties.
This might be one of those Vapor-Laws that money speaks louder than, however.
Everybody read those links, because these submarine patents are bullshit and the more noise the public makes about them, the less likely Acadia, Pan IP, and every other non-innovative lawyer on the planet are to think they can get aware with this bullshit.
"Old man yells at systemd"
In Soviet Russia, you fuck the patent owners.
I'm all for that.
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
If they lose this, then it's game over for Acacia and a victory for the human race.
Then again, MPAA and RIAA would probably be even more deadset against such an idea.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Nobody will be able to innovate OR go back to the old of doing things.
What a contradiction !
Everyone's head will then EXPLODE!!
BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!
So they own several patents concerning the transmission of audio and video over the Internet. I didn't read the patents in detail, but are they referring to tre transmission of streamed media only, or the transmission of any audio or video file?
If the patents are for streamed content, how does this factor in with things like Real Audio/Video, or other streamed content?
Loomis
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
I think the porn industry should get together find all the information they can of the sexual habits of whichever politicians are responsible for letting stupidity like this exist. Then grab them by short and curlies and blackmail the crap out of them and put to rest these restarted issues of DRM and the restriction of freedoms through the use of technology.
Wonder how they'd liked it if there personal lives were invaded stupid political money grubbing games.
A system of distributing video and/or audio information employs digital signal processing to achieve high rates of data compression. The compressed and encoded audio and/or video information is sent over standard telephone, cable or satellite broadcast channels to a receiver specified by a subscriber of the service, preferably in less than real time, for later playback and optional recording on standard audio and/or video tape. Seems like they are really reaching on that patent. I can see them go after directv or digital cable, but pr0n sites?
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
OK, at least one poster has said that porn companies are barely holding their own, and more that one has said they're rolling in the dough. Anyone have any facts?
The only publicly traded company I can find that deals in pornography is Playboy Enterprises (NYSE:PLA). Revenues this year are expected to be $272 million, of which $34 million are profits after expenses. $34M makes nice walking around money but is not whopping loads of cash in the corporate world. And Playboy Enterprises is HUGE compared to an internet outfit with some women in front of webcams. Since those aren't publicly traded, no hard numbers are available. However, I think we can safely assume that the outfits selling cheap videos and internet subscriptions, while obviously profitable, are not quite so flush with funds as some people think.
The days back when Real Men did Real Work. None of this bullshit with hijacking patents and holding businesses at ransom.
This portfolio of patents make business patents like one click seem exact and concrete by comparison. Basically these guys talk about any digital video on demand which is an idea not an invention and certainly not something worthy of a patent, especially not as late as 1992. One interesting thing from a laymans POV is how they are very generic as to the specifics of implementation except in claim 23.
The distribution method as recited in claim 19, wherein the step of storing includes the step of storing the received information at the head end of a cable television reception system.
It seems to me this limits their patent to VOD systems for a cable company or in room service not distribution over a distributed network (or heck a network of any kind). I don't claim to be a patent expert but how can a patent this broad apply if all of the claims do not apply? I mean if individual claims can stand on their own then there are some broad quantum computer patents I need to file!
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
"It's hard to handicap the American legal system," Harris said. "A lot of people didn't think O.J. Simpson would be out walking around."
A culture is in trouble when day to day activities are "governed" by laws whose applications are a crapshoot and a huge "priesthood" is required to interpret them to the common man.
We are like in Gulliver's Travels
Laputa has the Flappers to remind the people to occasionally speak and listen amidst their intense intellectual thoughts by flapping people of importance ears and lips with bladders.
The porn patents you!
...and IN SOVIET RUSSIA, beowulf clusters imagine 1, 2, 3 profit!!!! jokes made out of YOU!!!
Just two threads ago was a discussion of how America is losing it's technological edge. I think idiocy like this, and PanIP, and others of their ilk is going to kill our tech edge faster than anything else.
For a decade now we've heard free-market proselytes yap about how business will bring new innovations to the internet. But in practice what have we seen? The principal technologies in use are still those created largely academically and under research grants (some in partnership with very select members of the private sector, granted).
But principally what business has brought to the table is greed, squabbling and massively costly litigation, which far from encouraging innovation, increasingly inhibits it through fear and intimidation.
At the risk of overstating the case, I do think this is a further example of market forces alone being very far from the wholly benign influence they're so often touted as being.
Heh heh. In depth article. Heh.
Shut up, beavis.
--Bennett Prescott
Former Lord Of Packets
Taking about going after the "low hanging fruit" is probably not the best choice of words for an article about porn sites. It took me a minute to realize what they really mean.
This sounds like action on thier Media Services group, which is basicaly a bunch of patent mongoring whore lawers.
--
You sure got a purty mouth...
I'm serious.
The government has no interest in encouraging pornographic innovation. The first amendment may require that we tolerate pornography, but what does it say about us as a society when we actually *subsidize* the creation of pornography by handing out government monopolies for innovative pornographic techniques and content?
The framers were silent on this question, so I say it's time for action: Ban all pornovation! Eliminate all intellectual property protections for pornographic materials and watch what happens:
- The money will go away because you can't make a profit without ip monopolies
- when the money goes away production will cease
- when production drops, prices will rise intolerably and consumers will find pornography too expensive for their budgets
Simple economics proves that just like the software industry, intellectual property laws are the only thing keeping the hard-core porn industry afloat.
And BANG, just like that, overnight we'll eliminate the scourge of pornography. It's time to take action against pornovation!
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
might be here ?
This is a message from 1989 talking about a talk by FCC chairman re: cable vs telco and what things might be possible.
For consumers, the promised land would be video on demand" - no need to rent tapes or wait for the network to schedule a particular program. One-way broadband delivery coupled with 2-way narrowband signalling thus might be the way such systems would start off.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
It strikes me as odd, at least from a logical perspective, that Arcacia would try to "enforce" their patents by first going after online porn. It would make infinitely more sense if they went after the actual "infringers": namely, the companies producing streaming audio and video software. Going after Real, Apple (QT), M$ (WMP), and the like would have more legal validity, since webcasters purchase technology from these companies that they assume is legal... If any illegal goings on were happening, it stands to reason that the streaming media software providers would be the target.
Of course, there's a pretty shady reason why Acacia is going after porn first: A lot of people, particularly in the judicial system, have very little sympathy for pornographers. They will, at least subconciously, be much more receptive to the image of pornographers as "criminals", since they already consider them evil.
If they win their suits against the porn distributors, though, they have a legal precedent for hitting all kinds of companies, including the software providers (presumably where the money is), as well as anybody who delivers multimedia over the internet. So, the social conservatives who might hand down a token judgement against porn will be in the awkward position of setting a precedent to sue, say, a church that delivers sermons streaming over the Internet.
As with a lot of civil liberties issues, pornography is the frontier of freedom in this case. Many civil libertarians (myself included, since I'm also a feminist) probably wouldn't mind if porn suddenly disappeared. The problem is, if we legislate or judicate against pornography, then we set a very dangerous precedent for harrassing all kinds of expression (usually based on an arbitrary definition of morality, but in this case, purely economic reasons). Additionally, it's really none of my or the state's business what consenting adults do in front of a video camera. Anyway, even if you find pornography morally repugnant, it's still worth defending, when you consider what happens if we allow freedom of expression to erode at its very edge: the erosion spreads to radical political views, then alternative religious beliefs, and so on, eventually leaving a homogenous orthodoxy of ideas. Or, in this case, you simply have a parasite on the patent system getting in the way of people doing business, expressing themselves, and innovating.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
The stop telling jokes when they stop being funny.
- Others said the industry would not go down without a fight. "If we paid Acacia, it would be rolling over," said one adult webmistress in an interview, who asked not to be named. "It would be like saying 'Screw me,' even though that's (what) my business is about."
How can you beat a quote like that?I give up. Is he notorious because he's a pornographer, or because he supports the First Amendment.
Where's the funny part?
I think I remember reading about this company a couple of years ago. They had some 'revolutionary video transmission system' that turned out to be a hidden coax cable. Does anyone else remember this?
"(One enterprising webmaster noted that, in nature, the sharp thorns of the acacia tree guard a psychoactive compound also known as DMT, or n-dimethyitrptamine, which is extracted from the wood to make a sort of hallucinogenic snuff." A judge would have to be stoned out of his unholy mind to hold this! The good news is that DMT only lasts about an hour.
To date, Acacia doesn't seem to have targeted the most well-known players in the industry, including companies like Playboy.com and Hustler.com, owned by notorious First Amendement supporter and pornographer Larry Flynt.
I dare them to pick on Larry!
Table-ized A.I.
while (lawyers_get_rich && consumer_suffers ) {
AA.sues(Acacia, "copyright infringement technology distribution");
Acadia.sues(AA, "patented media type use" );
}
paintball
I'm not allowed to reverse engineer the molecule in question and post how it was made up otherwise I'll be sued under the DMCA.
That is fucking hillarious. Thank you.
We've been doing video on the net since the 1970's - ARPAnet based audio/video transfer has been working ever since the days when SRI drove a van up and back on US 101 near Palo Alto doing packet radio based streaming multimedia.
The patents never cited that work, perhaps because doing so would have been inconvenient.
We all can thank Bruce "I'm for sale" Lehman of the US Patent and Trademark office under whose term the idea that a patent, no matter how bad or how uncreative, wouldn't be issued to a paying "customer" was a kind of institutional anathama.
I remember this too but can't place it. I'm gonna have to google now.
Porn always leads the way. Whenever man creates a new way of distributing information one of the first things he does with it is use it to make some porn. Sure all you ever hear about is the Guttenberg (sp?) Bible but at the same time those were being cranked out of the press someone, somewhere was printing up some porn. Bank on it.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
because of course, Acacia has so many companies to thoroughly investigate, and so many videos to review to make sure they know exactly which videos violate this patent. In the name of being truly thorough, they'll have to view many of these videos numerous times. All in the name of legal research, of course.
If this is documented, could you PLEASE forward it to the defense coalition so they can use it as proof of prior art?
No wait. I thought I did. Then I realized, where the hell am I going to find a disgruntled Postal worker who lives near Acacia's home office?
We like to pretend that we don't like the porn industry, but the fact is that every swinging dick above the age of 15 has enjoyed pornography, and most continue to do so for the entirity of their lives. They just don't tell their wives.
There aren't many better non-violent ways to piss off all the men than to go after their porn.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Seems like they know where the money is at these days.
Why try to the remaining dot com fakes with no money.
I invented fucking girls in the ass.
A lot of gay guys were already fucking other gay guys in the bung.
I looked at that and my girlfriend and said, "I'm not gay, but..."
And the rest is history.
Thank you thank you thank you.
Now send me a check for $10, you cheap bastards.
How does it feel to be so repressed that you fear watching humans mate?
I've found people like you project sick feelings onto others so you feel the need to "stop" all the "porn" to make things "safe" for "[insert something here]"
In a lot of cases, guys/girls like you were molested as children and therefore have a warped world view.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going upstairs to fuck my wife. I'm going to fuck her so hard that she'll wimper like a puppy. I'm going to use every hole in her body and treat her like a toilet.
Phew. Bet you got a woody just reading that you sick little puppy.
No, you are thinking of Madison Priest. See this story for background and this one for the latest developments (federal drug and weapons charges).
Bah. When I saw Content-Transfer I thought some idiot was trying to say he had a patent on an HTTP headers or some dumb thing. WTF?
Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
Yes, I remember the story you're talking about. I'd swear I read about it here on slashdot, tho I don't recall if it was an article or a comment (probably the latter).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Most large US companies are already involved in porn. No, I'm not just talking about Disney purchasing small art house film makers. I'm talking about big finincail institutions such as GE Finance, GM and others having interests in porn. It does not bother them now.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Really?
Is there a lawyer in the house?
Can't they just file a motion to have the case dismissed?
Can't the lawyers for the defense just say something along the lines of "This patent suit is being filed only against small companies, because it's frivolous and they hope we'll settle out of court."
Shit like this should be illegal. It should be considered extortion and these guys should go to jail.
What can the porn guys sue these jerks for? There's gotta be something. Something that will allow them to put this company under, and convince a lawyer to take their case just so he could get x% of the winnings for an afternoon's work.
Life is too short to proofread.
What the hell? I was downloading porn from BBS's back in 1982. Sure, much of it were 7-bit ASCII graphics, but heck, it was digital content transferred over an information channel... Dang, where did I put those CP/M 5.25" floppies with them text files?
I had it good. I even had a daisy wheel that provided better looking output then them cheap 7 pin dot matrix text with no descenders.
Is it me or does morse code not constitue transmition of compressed sequenced data blocks of digital information (words using hoffman coding at the most basic). Did anyone ever send a picture in this way is the question ;)
I was downloading dirty pictures and movies on my C64 in the mid 80s, wouldn't that be prior art?
May you rid the world of those who have corrupted the computer industry!
Porn companies have lots of money to fight back with good laywers. I see this patent grabbing company already implode upong the load of prior art they probably will have smacked on their head.
I have yet so see a patent in the software field which wasnt based upon prior art!
Forward it to the companies, there are probably documents, the older this stuff is the better. Those patent grabbers need a severe smack on their head, if they dont get it others will follow soon.
That'd certainly make Jimmy Swaggart happy
I think it's about time to consider actions against corporations that behave this way, similar to actions recently taken against the SPAM-meisers. Such actions are akin to acts of civil disobedience against the government, which at first may seem like an odd comparison. However, the role of big corporations and their sizeable campaign contributions in our government are exactly what make this sort of behavior possible in the first place.
I think it's high time that these lawsuit corporations are made very aware that the citizenry will not stand for this kind of behavior. They have no product...they produce nothing of value...so they actually make it their business plan to litigate their way to profitablity.
I say screw 'em.
Any ideas of an appropriate plan of action. The irony of the Junk mail campaign against the SPAM King is most excellent, and I think makes a very obvious point. How can we do the same to these lawsuit corporations?
http://www.JournalOfTheRandom.com
The presumption of validity for granted patents is a real problem, but this one is a dog except (possibly) for a few limited claims.
The '992 patent was filed January 7, 1991 and issued July 21, 1992, and will thus be enforceable until January 6, 2011 (20 years after filing, which is longer than 17 years after issue in this case.)
The first independent claim reads as follows:
What are the elements of the invention: 1) storage; 2) unique id code for each item of information in the storage; 3) a way to convert the data into another format; 4) a way to place the formatted data into addressable data blocks; 5) a way to compress the formatted data; 6) a second storage area for the compressed data; 7) a way to transmit the data to remote locations.
Do you really think anyone read this patent and said, "Hey! Let's transmit porn over the Internet. I just found out how to do it!"
I can't cite patent numbers of prior art, because every prior creator felt it was too obvious to patent.
m l
However, if their patents do in fact claim ownership of tranferring compressed digital media over a medium (let's be as vague in our patent claims as possible!) in less than real-time, to a device, for later viewing in real time, then they're sunk.
How about downloading compressed true-color (12-bit) animations (some synthetic 3D, some actual captured video, not that it matters) from BBSes (and even the fledgling Internet). These 5-second clips often took an hour to download, so we'd leave the modem going and let the BBS idle-disconnect us, frequently going to bed while it DLed.
Later, you'd watch the (pitifully crude by today's standards) animation in awe.
One such early delta-compressed video clip has been converted into a more modern format. It, and the excruciatingly well-documented history of such media, is found at:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/erniew/juggler.ht
I encourage any of the Acacia defendents to have their legal staff examine the prior art documented here very seriously.
-- There is no truth. There is only Perception. To Percieve is to Exist.
c2k is pissed cause his xxxdonkey site isn't doing well....so he won't be at the site...and don't blame the donkey for this one...c2k forgot to publish the domain.
:)
Actually, c2k's problem is he can't discern between xxx sites and spammers that sell to them....there are lots of other things c2k is unable to discern as well, so this comes as no surprise to his fans