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Acacia Climbing the Food Chain
superflex writes "CNet and others have articles today related to a story that appeared here a couple months ago regarding Acacia Media Technologies, who hold several U.S. and international patents that they claim give them exclusive rights to compressed digital media transmission technologies. The previous article, for the lazy among you, was an AskSlashdot about whether the askers' pr0n site should pay license fees to these guys. Seems that since then, they've moved on to some internet radio sites, and are actually getting fees out of them. Their claims haven't been challenged in court yet, but they appear very broad, possibly covering PPV on cable/satellite as well as internet-based streaming. One wonders if they might try going after one of the big boys soon."
They've built up a history of legal victories. Then, one of the big boys will stand up for themselves, and fight them off in court.
... what, about 100 years ago?
Morse? Nah, really. Probably not a strong argument for 'compression'.
Regardless, this is just one more of those 'communication should be free' fish in the barrel which someone ought to just tip over...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I not only feel informed, I feel insulted as well!
In my opinion this can't be done. I believe copyright or patents on this belong to someone else, or are open.
Companies folding in to this scheme are working with Acacia I suspect. In so much as once a group of legal victories are obtained, this sets precedent
Once the precedent is set they can go after more valid targets. Except they are NOT VALID TARGETS as the patent is bunk.
Don't be mad at these guys.
I breifly looked over their claims at the USTPO, and it looks pretty valid to me.
So don't be mad at them for having the foresight to come up with this in 1991, and wanting to make some money.
If you're going to get mad, get mad at the USTPO for granting such broad stretching patents in the first place.
The system is in place for things like this to happen, and I really don't understand why people are continually surprised when this type of thing happens. It will continue to happen until the US government changes the way the patent process works.
That being said, it is pretty slimy to hold a patent for 12 years and just now start to enforce it, but again, our current patent system model encourages this behavior, so din't be surprised when it happens again.
On the other hand, if this never happened, Slashdot wouldn't be so busy.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
anyone who wanted to save a few cents on a per letter charge transmission?
Digital cellular and PCS are covered by this patent as well. Wonder when Acacia will get to suing them -- and whether they'll be able to dig up examples of prior art.
Speaking of which, the telcos have been using digital compression for a very long time on their trunk lines; while it wasn't an algorithmic compression method, it did result in less total throughput needed. Would this be considered prior art?
Like a link to the "the askers' pr0n site"?!? huh? huh??
sheesh... =)
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
If someone successfully sues them in court, do they have to pay back what they already collected from other companies?
It seem like a simple fix for patents would be:
1. if you don't enforce the patent in the first year you lose it
2. whatever the terms you make for anyone using a patent are the terms everyone gets
3. you can never change the terms of use for a patent after they are established
4. you get a fixed amount of time to submit a patent with no extensions
5. have the patent office actually do a check for prior art before accepting the patent
Those few changes would stop companies from broadsiding us with patents, but allow things that really deserve patent to continue to get them.
Pocket PC Games
Someone should build a time machine, go back, get a patient on making crappy broken operating systems, come back and sue mircosoft!
"Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day... Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."
Someone fax goatse.cx to their fax number!!! =)
Acacia Research Corporation
500 Newport Center Drive, 7th Floor
Newport Beach, California 92660
Phone: (949) 480-8300
Fax: (949) 480-8301
Email: info@acaciares.com
Then post it to them, then email it to them, then phone them up and say, imagine an old man, bending over and spreading his rotten arse-band for you to give him a tonsil inspection.
Who would have thought that Goatse.cx would, one day, represent all that is free in this world!
... companies will suffer. I don't think that they have the resources (reads $money$) to challenge an AOL or Microsoft. Wasn't there a similar claim about a patent for hyperlinks?? Does anyone know if the Patent Office is even looking into this??? Sounds like a lot of patents went through that are commonplace technologies on the web. Kinda like having a patent for an 'common building entry way' and suing everyone who has a door. Where were they three years ago during the dot-com age? Wouldn't they have made more money then collecting patent fees?
If they succeed this can be a real eye-opener for the politicians. Patents on software is not an overall good idea for business.
If every company lost say, a million $ worth of patents, but in doing so gained access to billions of $ worth of patents - then that would be a net gain for everyone, wouldn't it?
Contrary to popular belief, I don't think patents are good for society. Necissity is the mother of all invention, not a patnet. It simply amazes me how stubbornly people refuse to consider that these crazy things are simply the philosophy of patnets being brought to their logical conclusion.
Acacia Research Corporation
500 Newport Center Drive, 7th Floor
Newport Beach, California 92660
Phone: (949) 480-8300
Fax: (949) 480-8301
Email: info@acaciares.com
I would argue in favour of mass sending of goatse.cx to every communication channel we have with them.
After all, that is a compressed digital transmission! (JPEG - no I didn't check, i just guessed!)
Thank god nobody patented what is shown in the pr0n videos.
Oh wait, where's the Patent Office btw ?
getSexySig();
Ermm... sooo yeah. These so-called 'people' you mention. You say they 'created something new without copying Acacia' ... uh huh.
Please prove that your client did not ruthlessly steal my clients valuable technology and unscrupulously propagate it in an attempt to squash us out of the market.
Thank you. See you in court.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
How did they deal with their Acacia demand?
Here's a brilliant idea for the government to chew on: Rescend all patents on electronics-based technology!
That way, we wouldn't have companies coming up with a Good Thing, patenting(sp?) it, then waiting until someone else starts making money off of it, then sueing them for all that they've gained!
I don't think I'm alone in saying that the way the US Patent Code works is extremely frelled up, and needs some MAJOR revisions NOW. I'm tired off all the sue-happy people and companies in US, but I guess that's the way a capitalistic democratic republic is supposed to work. I figure if we get rid of most of the big, monopolistic companies, and give more of the marketshare to the smaller, more diverse companies, maybe then we could start truly competing with Japan, Korea, et al. in the electronics marketplace.
And, as an added bonus, maybe then the politicians in the government will start to work for the betterment of the people, rather than whichever mega-corp hands them the most money that month.
Not trying to say that America is a bad country, because I'd rather live here than anywhere else, and the ideals of America are great. It's the people running the country that are corrupt and amoral. Get someone in the Presidentcy that truly doesn't care about money, and I'm pretty sure that we'd all see MAJOR changes in the way the government handles big corporations, and possibly giving fair taxation to everyone (you know....if you make more money, you pay more taxes, if you make ALOT more money, you pay less taxes?!?!? What the frell is up with that?????)
--CypherDragon
That being said, it is pretty slimy to hold a patent for 12 years and just now start to enforce it
Exactly, be mad! :)
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
How the hell much longer is it going to be until we get patent reform?
It's pretty obvious to everyone that changes are necessary, but there's no movement to change things.
May we never see th
Technically, a digital camera uses compressed digital media transmission technologies to upload photos to your PC. Does this patent also cover this? How about FireWire interfaces on digital camcorders?
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
Personally, I feel that there are a wealth of smaller companies that Acacia will be able to sue or otherwise persuade to license their technology. Virgin was also a significant win.
after I realized that it was crap? Regretfully not.
I don't think that the court is deciding damages, but rather forcing the defendent to buy a license to manufacture the technology from the plaintiff or stop manufacturing it.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Also note that the abstract of the patent claim isn't the important part. The claims are. Refer to claim #35, "35. A receiving system as recited in claim 25, wherein the transceiver means receives the information via any one of telephone, ISDN, broadband ISDN, satellite, common carrier, computer channels, cable television systems, MAN, and microwave."
The only one of those that seemed a bit dodgy is to me was "Common Carrier", which is defined here for your convenience, courtesy of the U.S. Federal Govt, Federal Standard 1037C. Interpreting that definition in its broadest terms, there are a hell of a lot of transmission media that could fall under the claims of this patent.
sigs are for suckers
I would doubt they'll do that until one of the 'small boys' has taken them to court and a precedent has been set.
1. Get patent
2. do { threaten small_sites; } until (court_case_won and legal_precedent_set);
3. Profit from big boys!
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
Unfortunately that is how patent law works. If you develop a product or process at the same time as someone else (both doing original work), whoever patents it first owns it. No arguments. The person who patents it owns the idea outright and has the right to license it.
This sort of thing has happened before (the telephone comes to mind, but I don't remember Bell's comptetitor). Just because these people created something without copying it from Acacia, doesn't lessen the validity of their claim. Not to say that the patent itself is valid or not, but as long as it is deemed valid their claim holds.
Remeber, ignorance is not a defense (particularly in court).
The articles at extremetech.com were very intersting.
Evolution: love it or leave it
Compressed audio and video transmission patented? In 1991 at that? Come on, that's like me patenting that you can wear shoes and socks at the same time. Digitally compressed video and audio existed LONG before these jokers. I mean CDs used PCM back in the mid-80s, and as for video, look here and here and about 20,000 more references on Google. This patenting of ideas that are just naive bundles of existing concepts just blows me away ... STOP THE INSANITY!
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
The root of the problem is government. Eliminate the powers of government which make these ridiculous lawsuits profitable, and we eliminate the ridiculous lawsuits.
Huffman compression is an algorithm for converting fixed length charecter code to variable length charecter code.
Since ASCII natively uses all bits of a fixed length for every charecter one can compress it by writing "1" instead of a bunch of zeros followed by a 1.
Morse is natively variable length. Not the same thing at all.
KFG
Why didn't *I* think of filing for stupidly broad patents when I was in high-school? I could have then sat on my ASS and sued people to become rich. I could live off the hard work of others and contribute NOTHING back.
The sorrow of missed opportunities....
Maybe I can still file a patent on a method of organizing pending work so that it can be done in the most time-efficient manner possible (procrastination)!
Thank you USPTO! Thank you for validating the laziness of American Citizens. Proving once again that it's better to let others do the work, as long as you can take the credit.
Out of curiosity, did Crapper patent the toilet ?
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
Unfortunately that is how patent law works. If you develop a product or process at the same time as someone else (both doing original work), whoever patents it first owns it. No arguments. The person who patents it owns the idea outright and has the right to license it.
No, the problem is that software is seen as something that is different from everything else and thus can be patented even if there is prior art from the 'real world'. Just take an existing patent, add the claim 'using software' and you own a large market, say encryption, only streaming, whatever. It works like this:
Go shopping with two shopping carts and everything is fine. Display two shopping cart icons on your website, you will be sued. Create a coffee dispenser (You press the button, then insert coins and the coffee comes out). Everythings fine, obvious idea, no problem. But if you do this on a website (press button -> buy book), you will be infringing. Tell your friend the chords of Stairway to Heaven over the telephone, no problem. Stream a MIDI file over the same telephone line, you will be infringing.
Think about it.
Acacia Climbing the Food Chain
Am I the only one that had images of man-eating trees in my head? Or maybe they are just eating insects now?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
What happens when someone takes your time machine back in time to invent a time machine before you did, patents it, comes back and sues you for infringement?? Huh? What then?
Moral of the story: If you don't want to be sued, don't invent a time machine.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
Drinkable coffee is 140 degrees or cooler. McDonald's coffee was 180 degrees, enough to cause third-degree burning of skin. The lady who sued McDonald's initially sought only to recover her medical costs plus legal fees, a fraction of the half-million USD that the courts awarded her.
Read more facts about the McDonald's coffee lawsuit.
Will I retire or break 10K?
One wonders if they might try going after one of the big boys soon
Nope, I'm willing to bet their business strategy is to harass little people as long as they can, fattening up their checkbooks, and then selling out for a nice huge pile 'o cash to the the 'big boys'
Think about it, they make a lot of money setting precedents....then sell out to the 'big boy' who will pay them the most for the patent and process.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
------ Often it's not the technology that's high, but the people who create it.
Well, then I'd go back farther in time, and patient...patienting! yah!
"Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day... Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."
You're confusing a character set *optimized* for small "file size" with a compressed one. Again, they're two completely different beasties.
One can compress even an optimized character set though. For instance, if you have the string "eeeeeeeee" you could write it "e8." This is essentially what many image compressions do, since they often deal with large areas of the same data.
These people are essentially saying they have a patent on transmitting the digital phrase " paint the screen red."
KFG
It only seems fair to me that Acacia should try to enforce their patent on those guys.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
I just used ASCII as an obvious and intuitive example. It doesn't even have to be digital code, just any code of fixed length where some of the "bits" are effectively redundant place holders.
I'd only point out that all bit strings that stand for some sort of character are character code. All digital computer code is just code "made from bits." 255 zeros followed by a 1, 1 and SOH are all the same character using a different "font" as it were, just as the Morse character ".-" is actually the same as "a". Printed Morse is actually human readable with a little practice. So is ASCII in decimal ( with a LOT of practice) if it comes to that, but why bother? Even the English alphabet itself is just a graphical code, and just one of many possible ones.
Don't get hung up on the particular *form* a character code takes. It's still a character.
KFG
Where is the prior art on this ... When was the first digital transmission of video. I know my company has not been in the digital boardcast before July 1992 (their first patent)
I keep seeing this "feed on the little guys to build a warchest and tackle the big boys later" discussion whenever IP topics come up -- about once every ten minutes, it seems). This, combined with the customary huge delay between patent issue and onset of enforcement makes me wonder about the legality of such selective enforcement in general.
I'm not one to propose an overhaul to our legal code, but this seems to be symptomatic of a system where "might makes right" (or wrong, as the case may be).
I can't fault the IP owner for seeing the little guy as easy pickin's or the big deep pockets player as someone to fear. One can't fight back, and the other can hold you off until your legal council resigns due to lack of funds.
"DMT" is an implementation. No one uses "DMT" for their digital media compression. They use any one of a handful of other technologies that probably all have patents, too.
Second of all, you can't sue the people using the content delivery systems. You have to sue the people who made the content delivery systems (ie. Real, Microsoft, etc.). This would be like suing all the people who bought Vanilla Ice CD's because Vanilla Ice violated copyright laws by sampling someone else's music without getting permission or giving credit.
This is a non-issue. The only reason people are coughing up money is because it's probably such a laughably small licensing fee that it is cheaper than paying lawyers to go to trial over this.
The facts? Certainly NOT to be found on the web site you gave us, which is run by a business that makes lots of money by filing frivolous lawsuits to get blameless people to pay for the clumsiness of others.
If you don't believe a site you accuse of being run by ambulance chasers, would you believe the Association of Trial Lawyers of America? Or are they ambulance chasers as well?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I think the most important thing in this presentation is that statement about "less than real-time". Ye Gawd, I'd like to see that work! The secret of time travel at last...
- the USTPO looks at the patent application
- does a cursory search for prior patents (not prior art)
- if no prior patents show up, it issues the patent
Nowhere in this process is that "value" of the patent weighed. Nowhere is the "validity" of the patent weighes. It's just too much for the patent office to handle. The onus is on the public at large to overthrow crappy patents, not the USTPO. Just because you have a patent on something doesn't mean that patent is worth a damn.2) GIF patent expires when? 2003? 4?
3) GIF probably predates it and is more specific, and so no broad patent could be valid.
And yes, Morse was designed to compress because of the inefficiency of the telegraph.
the company i worked for at the time got these letters back in june or july... we laughed at them then and will laugh at them now. there is so much prior technology that it's laughable that they think they can enforce this. don't give in - just perpetuates patent fraud as a business model
How long do patents last, exactly? Something like 30 years?
....."
;)
USPTO: Spreading 30-year-old technology to the masses.
This is yet more proof that I would be happier as a farmer.
Something about the act of controlling ideas just really irks me. Like, if you're not on the "inside" or if you don't like to shell out big bucks, then fuck you.
Am I the only one who isn't happy about that attitude?
I think all IP laws should only extend to let businesses hurt other businesses, if they are to exist at all. That way, only businesses will have to deal with this kind of stuff.
Wait a second, that means that if I ever want to start a business, I will need tons, and tons, and tons of money to pay licensing fees, and I will have to hire many full-time lawyers to tell me just which fees I need to pay.
Ugh. I don't like a system where one person can screw everyone else over; but then again, I'm not sure I like a system where there's lots of "some other guys" out there preventing me from ever doing anything.
Who remembers seeing all those TV shows as a kid, where the "leader" type of character would be trying to solve some sort of problem between other characters on the show, and would say "I know! Let's
I should hate every show like that, for filling me with the false hope that if I come up with an idea, it is "mine" and I can use it freely.
Patents keep us from thinking, and deter observing. Copyrights keep us from writing, and deter us from reading and listening. Trade secrets keep us from talking, and deter us from being curious. Trademarks keep us from spelling things correctly, and deter us from complaining.
Yep, they've got about all the bases covered. Maybe I'm just jealous of the 7,223,753 people who already have control of certain ideas, and I'm jealous that I haven't patented something so I make money off of other people with little effort. Oh well.
*post-preview* Wow, this things is so angry, almost flaming. Ah, but I have reason to be angry, in my mind, anyway
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Actually, it'd be cool to go back in time and patent a method for screwing :)
people & companies by abusing the patent system. Then you could sue these guys for patent infringement
"AMSAT/TAPR are funding a digital signal processing project which I co-chair with Tom Clark W3IWI whose purpose is to bring the tools of DSP to bear on amateur signalling problems. We are working on all the tools necessary to bring a mini ISDN into being. Software that currently works on the devices we are working on (TMS320 family) provides ADPCM and LPC encoding of voice at 9600 bps rates and W5SXD is working on some TMS340 video compression schemes."
What more do you want, it uses DSP, networking, and video compression.
It took me all of _10 seconds_ to dig this up from a 1987 usenet post.
It seems to me that someone shouldn't be able to patent something as broad as "compress data before transmitting to save bandwidth". That's just common sense. It's not like they actually invented the concept of compression on the fly. The whole thing is somewhat subjective. Why can't I just patent "a thing that improves something", and sue everyone. Someone has to set up better guidelines about what is actually patentable.
Vote for Pedro
My guess is that in this case, Acacia doesn't expect to be able to take on the big boys, so all their out of court settlements probably force the companies to pay, whether or not the patent is later found invalid.
P.S. IANAL
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
This is a patent on a system. It should be considered as a whole. Is this a patent on audio/video compression? No. Is this a patent on transmitting audio/video over a phone line? No. Is this a patent on receiving audio/video over a phone line? No. This is a patent that puts those components, and others, together forming a system. Web radio utilizes some of those same components, but not all. I am a webcaster and run a successful web radio business. I provide a system that transmits compressed audio over the internet. I do not provide a receiver, other businesses sell the components for reception. The user can not choose what content they receive, that level of interactivity is prohibited under the terms of my license with the copyright holders. Selecting content is a component of this patent. The audio can not be stored for later playback at a time of the recipients choosing, at least not without somehow circumventing the technologies I use. Storage for later playback, time shifting, is a component of this patent. As a webcaster, I'm interested in this issue. I'm also reasonably well informed. I haven't received a letter from Acacia... yet. We're ready for it though. Cheers.
I will admit to knowing little about patent law, but it seems like besides disallowing overly broad patents and blocking people from patenting things that are obvious there are two rules that could help things:
Both these ideas have their problems. For one, it might be difficult for small entities to do the required litigation to defend patents this way. But it seems like this would be the direction to go. I would guess provisions similar to these already exist (especially the second), are they just not enforced?
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Intellectual Property is just that. Property. To be enforced through force like any other property.
If the U.S. government treats copyrights and patents as property (constitutionally, it shouldn't), then why does the government not charge property tax?
Will I retire or break 10K?
it is pretty slimy to hold a patent for 12 years and just now start to enforce it
If a patent holder delays legal action against an infringer for several years, the doctrine of laches takes away the right of the patent holder to receive damages for infringements that occurred before the patent holder filed the lawsuit.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I thought this was a story about some bizarre genetic engineering experiment.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
During his service in the U.S. Congress, Al Gore did take the initiative in transforming a private network of military and scientific institutions into the commercial Internet. Even Vint Cerf has acknowledged the former Vice President's contribution.
"I invented the Internet" debunked
But one of Thomas Crapper's employees did invent an improved flush toilet.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Someone else already mentioned GSM/PCS. The technology was actually *deployed* in the early nineties so it should have been patented a long time before. The telcos have compressed the inter-branch digital traffic for even longer. Nothing fancy, but it was compression and I think that came out of Bell Labs.
I used to send MOD files across email packed using the Automation Packer when I was part of a demo-group for the Atari ST... we used a BBS (CIX) rather than the Internet, but does this count as prior art? It was around 1990 or 91.
:)
This would be compressed media, right?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So would this patent apply to video/audio streamed over a hardware compressed modem?
From the abstract, it doesn't look like it should apply to compression over IP at all: it describes a system for compression video/audio over standard telephone, cable or satellite broadcast channels.