Slashdot Mirror
Acadia Streaming Patent Contested
Anonymous Coward writes "Since last year Acadia Research has sent hundreds of letters to various porn web sites to arrange royalty deals, picking on the small fry before trying to take on well-heeled companies such as Disney. However, many small fries refused, and now 40 firms have joined forces and are embroiled in a suit with Acadia. Fish & Richardson (a prominent intellectual property law firm) have taken their case. The best part? CEO Paul Ryan's obvious sour-grapes-syndrome, he goes from describing the web porn industry as a "billion-dollar industry" where the money is to a "sideshow" that's "maybe 1% of our potential revenues". Check it out here"
I wonder how many bastards like Acadia Research do we need before people realise that there's something wrong with how we look at "intellectual property." I'm sure Thomas Jefferson is spinning in his grave.
"Acadia Research has sent hundreds of letters to various porn web sites ... picking on the small fry before trying to take on well-heeled companies such as Disney."
By 'various porn web sites' do you mean the single largest online industry and the driving force behind countless advancements of the internet over the years? I think it's safe to say that Acadia Research chose the wrong 'small fry' to pick on.
No, its a screaming warning sign not to invest you idiot. And coupled with this ridiculous patent grab its a bigger warning to stay away.
Slashdot should get a Patent on spelling errors (who am I to talk ^^) . Just noticed that Slashdot calls it Acadia where as it is actually called Acacia. Hurry, editors! HURRY!
Learnt english mine I did from fansub anime!
NO! not really!
YOU SUCK BALLS!
How many of their readers need to have explained in baby talk what streamed video porn might be about? And then there's the suggestion that a law firm had to be persuaded to take the case. Let's just explain this. The way you "persuade" a law firm to take your case is, you offer them enough money.
The writer seems to be uncomfortable that porn companies are involved. But it's hard to understand why they should be any worse ethically than gun companies, liquor companies, and certainly tobacco companies, and they spend huge amounts of money on lobbying and litigation to protect their interests.
Anyway, they are to be applauded. Acacia is basically (in my admittedly incompetent opinion only) a loser company with a business model based on a protection racket, and has tried to set the price of being left alone at a level low enough that its victims will pay rather than litigate. They have chosen to litigate, and that increases the chance that this kind of thing will fail in future. Which is good for innovation and the economy. And, as I suspect the Democrats will be saying in 2004, it's the economy, stupid.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Haven't the US patent office worked out yet the system is being abuse?
The problem is, that the US Patent Office sees itself as a government profit center. It has no desire to correct any abuses because it doesn't see abuses, it sees all the money it is raking in with the fees it charges in granting and maintaining patents. To make any kind of reform in the USTPO, a major paradigm shift needs to occur within the USTPO concerning its place in the United States Government.
We may all agree that the place of the USTPO is to encourage innovation by rewarding those who perform the research nessessary to create advancements. It is my belief that this was the original purpose of the USTPO. In 1980, The United States Supreme Court broadened the scope of what is patentable - allowing "anything under the sun that is made by man" to be patented. Then again in 1998, the scope was broadened even further allowing "methods of doing business" patentable.
We are now seeing the fallout of these decisions. Individuals and corporations patenting ideas and concepts that previously were not patentable, irregardless as to any prior art of such ideas or concepts. Perhaps someone should patent the idea of a corporation or a business and sue anyone who would use a patent as a cudgel to extort a small organization instead of using it for its intended purpose - defense of inventions from those who would profit from their research.
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
. . . to invent a business model that let's the porn industry make you look sleazy.
These people claim to have patents on digital cell phones. I wonder if they realize that yet.