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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"
In other news, Amazon plans to sue every site on the internet that uses cookies, as well as Microsoft for allowing sites other than Amazon to stores cookies.
This isn't the first Forbes anti-excessive patents article they've run... as a matter of fact, I've seen links to a couple already on Slashdot. Could Steve Forbes be pushing for patent reform to be a Republican plank in '04 (especially if he decides to run again...)?
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.
I run Windows Media Server and cast this so-called "streaming media." I suppose they'll be after me too huh?
In other news, I've just applied for a patent on sex.
I sure as hell hope this doesn't fly
just what the net (and the world) needs
another company about to go belly up over
what they think is thier property
can you say Amazon.com?
Life is like a jar of jalapeños, what you do today may burn your ass tomorrow.
I'd have voted for the guy! Flat tax! Amongst other things....
more case of Patents gone crazy. The patent office was designed to protect ones ideas and STIMULATE growth, not to allow people to suddenly restrict the use of a VERY commonpractice. I can't say that I'm too pleased with their lawsuit, but I do appreciate the nuances. If I created something, I'd sure as hell want to keep it protected and to earn royalties. Yet at the same time, this is abusing the system. They have a patent on something. That something becomes common practice. That patent becomes lucrative. Company suddenly goes after people using common practice. And they go really low, because they beleive that the porn industry, made of lots o lil fishes, won't be able to defend themselves. After all, the court will just frown down on these "dispicable" people (hey, everyone needs to make a living).
I am all for patents, and for protecting your ideas. but I am also for the expansion of ideas and the advancement of us all. So poo-on-you Acadia!
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Yeah, yeah, go ahead & reply w/ the obligatory joke about /.ers "not having to worry about getting sued for infringement."
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
Eight firms agreed to Acacia's terms. But 40 didn't, and Acacia promptly slapped them with lawsuits. Rather than buckling, though, several of the porno sites joined together and stood their ground. Now Acacia is in the fight of its life and may even face a shareholder revolt as a result.
Searching for sexual innuendos..... searching......
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Did Acacia actually have anything of substance? Or is it just one of those "a method to over the net" patents that mention an idea but not much else.
Unless these companies are using tech developed at Acacia what right does Acacia have to their income?
Don't EVER post a story about porn sites and end it with a link entitled "Check it out here" :(
You really got my hopes up
my other penis is a vagina
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.
I imagine they will feel insulted at being called a well heeled porn site.
It would be like a massive horde of little white knights rushing to breach......wait. Lets not go there.
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
"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 mean no!
Basically,
1. Some company patented "streaming video".
2. They began shaking down porn websites, figuring they wouldn't fight back.
3. A bunch of porn sites got together and are fighting back.
Is a royalty-free streaming video feed of the court proceedings. They promise to be quite entertaining.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
does anyone have a link to the actual patents? there's probably prior art for this.
Make them watch twenty hours of Ron Jeremy, they'll buckle quicker than Asia Carerras panties come off
You'd get karma points for being modded up as Insightful and Funny!
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
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.
So Disney is into porn now? Is that hentai, or hardcore?
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
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.
I know that our current patent system is set up so that, if you don't defend your patent for a certain amount of time, you can't just come back and start attempting to enforce it. Perhaps, as we see more and more cases like this, it would be smart for the Congress or the Courts to much more clearly define the limits on trying to enforce a patent after you didn't bother for a while. Though this might lead to more vigorous legal action to defend ridiculous patents in the short-term, it might do good long-term by helping prevent fiascos like this one (or the one where some company tried to claim they'd patented the hyperlink...etc, ad nauseum).
How To Get Humans To Mars
From a Lexmark printer?
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
I think every healthy, freedom-loving Slashdot reader owes these porn purveyors our thanks. Each and every one of you should go subscribe to their services tonight - remember, you're doing it to protect innovation. If this angers your wife/girlfriend, tell her it's for a good cause.
I hope the challenge succeeds. Not because I have any love of porn on the web (I hate pop-up hell with a passion -- long live kazaa for pr0n!), but because I so badly hate patent whores.
But then... ah, nevermind. I could waste a ton of bandwidth waxing political, but what good would it do?
I'll just shut up now.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
The bottom line is that there is a desperate need for patent reform. My first suggestion is a peer review process. Technology specialization has gotten to the point where I do not think a fulltime patent clerk can stay current in a field. Second, the patent process must be completed in a short timeframe. If you cannot provide a clear patent right away, then you probably do not have good idea. The current patent process has a disclosure document program that can be used to help establish precedent. It even provides for a patent pending. IMHO those two concepts provide sufficient protection of an idea. The purpose of a finite timeframe is to reduce the number of submarine patents.
A dissenting opinion to my view can be found here.
IIRC, the article said that the company was sitting on a pile of cash and assets much greater than the value of the company's stock. If this is really true, and the owners think there's no prospect of a sustainable business going forward, it would be good sense to just cease operations and split the loot up between them.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I suppose you'll run a Box-Cox transformation to normalize the data...
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
Haven't the US patent office worked out yet the system is being abuse? I mean as they are going for streaming media does this mean they could go for people who are downloading MP3's (legal or not). This case deserves to be kicked out of court or its going to be hell for everyone. Of course if this is allowed I'm going to patent toilet paper and then ask for 1% of everyone income. Now that would be crap :P (pun intended)
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Doesn't this just FEEL absurd? The pornographers (demonized as evil) fighting the good fight against a corporation (idealized as guardians of innovation and american spirit).
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
As any well-educated nerd knows, Acadians are descended from French-Canadian exiles who fled Nova Scotia (aka Acadia) for south Louisiana centuries ago.
Since then we've been speaking French and cooking gumbo. But I'm pretty sure "acacia" is a tree indigenous to the Middle East.
Get it straight you bastards! We Cajuns (itself a Creole bastardization of 'Acadian') ain't up in no streaming-media piracy, no! Mais non!
I saw a porno once where a guy was "streaming" in a woman's mouth, but I didn't think you could patent such a thing.
His lawyer said that Mr. Herman did not infringe because he wasn't streaming.... he was only dribbling.
Here's a little analogy that came to mind.
A pimp makes money off his hoes. Now somebody is trying to make money off the pimps (we'll call this person Supapimp). Supapimp didn't invent the pimpin game, so how does he expect to get pimpin royalties? You can't just decide to tax the rest of the pimps and expect to get away with it. All those pimps gon come with the pimpslap, and Supapimp won't end up with nuthin but a sore ass.
-Look lively. LOOK LIVELY!!! --Mr. Shmallow
Didn't Marx say something along the lines of "the seeds for the destruction of capitalism are within"?
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
Seeing as streaming video is BUILT IN to most media players/codecs, this is gonna get thrown out quick. Not to mention the idea of streaming video is probably 50 years old, what with those dreams of videophones and all..
Does anybody remember this story about the chocolatier who refused to buckle to PanIP, a company that claims to have the patents on e-commerce? These two situations seem nearly identical. I wonder how a win/loss in one case might affect the other?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
If Acacia goes after Goatse, I'm going down there myself to teach them a thing or two.
IAAL
Didn't some dumbass try to copyright the name Linux and then sue Linus? This isn't the same case since the porn people didn't invent streaming video, but it's another case of abusing the system.
-Look lively. LOOK LIVELY!!! --Mr. Shmallow
I can't seem to find the patents after doing a search at the patent office website http://patft.uspto.gov/. Anybody have better luck?
And IRB (140733): no insult intended; I think that you guys are both right.
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
Cajuns are Acadians who migrated from Nova Scotia to Louisiana. Cajuns, are in fact, Acadians in Louisiana.
Acadians is a group of people/culture/region (Acadie) from Nova Scotia. They are alive and well IN Nova Scotia, still living and breathing to this day.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
Anyone know when this was originally patented? I can't seem to find it at the Patent Office online. I remember watching streaming video/audio in Real Player around 95, and videoconferencing in 90-91 (which is streaming video). Unless they patented this in the early 80's, there's TONS of prior art to this.
Hmmmm, maybe I'll patent the idea of prior art. Wonder if it's been tried already.
Prior Art: The process of which indicates if an already existing patent and/or use was already pre-existing. If anything remotely acts/looks/operates/functions to/like anything already existing, they are in violation of this patent.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
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.
Patent restricted to no more than 10 years.
Should your patent go unimplamented for a year after being issued you lose your patent.
You may not 'protect' a patent you have never implamented.
The idea of patents are that once you've implamented your unique idea that someone else dosen't copy you.
The problem with thies new patent ploys is the patent holders never actually implamented the patent. Thies are just holds on technology other people would later actually do.
It's a violation of the consept.
I don't actually exist.
I would mod you up, but alas, I have no mod points.
Your technique would be a lot more applicable if the article actually talked about women in any way other than the third-person plural. As it is, the best one I came up with is:
I'd like to control a third of HIS firm stock, if you get my drift!
No, I am not a homosexual.
How about the last part of the article?
"We don't need a partner for years and years."
=)
"GNU's not Unix....it's Linux" / Kami "kokamomi" Petersen
Funny, I have a client named Acadia Research (in the financial sector) that is in no way related to these losers. If I remember correctly, they do have a trademark on the name "Acadia Research".
I wonder if my client should file a trademark infringement suit against these jokers... Anybody got any thoughts?
Stop ruining the good name of Acadians. :(
Hey!
Where are Cage & McBeal?
What's the deal with Fish and that other guy? That "Richardson" seems suspiciously like "Richard"...
This may be complete ignorance of the patent system, but if I had patented the lighbulb, shouldn't I expect to get royalties from the manufacturers, not the end user? (althought the manufacturer will pass the cost to the end user).
Since most web sites use Real media or MS streaming servers, not their own home built ones, aren't REAL and MS the people infringing on the patent?
By the way, the company is Acacia , not Acadia , which is the national park in Maine by where I live...
"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." - Democritus
Sexist pig... assuming that every healthy, freedom-loving Slashdot reader is either male or a lesbian... Well I'm here to say, ladies, pay-porn-for-protest is your right too!
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
I'm not sure, but I've heard t'ings. I think I'd rather pick on the house of the mouse than try an get a "tax" from the good fella's. They usually settle out of court don't they?
As an inventor and founder of a company that holds several patents, in the area of dynamically controlling digital video speed, I have some feelings on both sides of the issue. We have consistently tried to implement our inventions, and in fact had to scramble to get our first app in as we showed an early implementation at a trade show in 1994 to try to drum up interest. We are involved in several "discussions" over products that appeared several years later, and every single one has declared they do not infringe upon our patents. Time will tell... Plus, I am trying to figure out what to do about some much larger companies that have brought out features on products in the last 12-18 months that look like they infringe. My investors want us to do something, and we have to try, but when our pockets are shallow and others are deep, what is the solution?
On the other hand, when companies buy up patents and try to enforce them without ever creating products themselves, that kind of gets my goat. The whole patent thing was started to give little guys like us some sort of defensive weapon when fighting to build a product and a market.
Microsoft views playboy as a competitor, and is launching it's own porn site: www.playbill.com
"Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
No great surprise, there.
My only problem with this suit is that I loath and detest both sides. Maybe the combined over-inflated egos of everyone involved will cause a gravitational collapse, pulling the lot of them into a gigantic black-hole, thus saving civilization from the evils of both IP and Prawn merchants.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I've been reverse engineering suspect products and putting tegether claim-by-claim Powerpoint presentations, detailing the infringing code. The next step I figure is to set up my SoftICE remote debugger to show how it infinges while it is running, and then take this to 1) the company and, if necessary, 2) to a judge in our local Fed Circuit court.
. . . 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.
Tomorrow we'll try "select all" and "find".
oh it's stimulating growth alright. growth in the number and cost of lawyers to repeatedly attempt to undo what they did.
The lesson learned? Don't attack the porn sites as "small guys". They'll fight back! That and they actually make enough money to warrant a joint resistance opposed to a lot of the small e-commerce sites that support mom & pop shops.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
--
Randolpho's Slashdot Moderation Plan:
1. Whore me some karma
2. ???
3. Moderate!
FYI, step 2 should be "smoke crack".
Funny, I could have sworn folks had a right to life, liberty and to chase down and kill whatever makes 'em happy.
Maybe I missed it but when did this dude get put in charge of deciding what people ought to read, watch on TV or how to better themselves?
We really need to keep our eye on guys like this. If we don't, they'll start burning books, telling us there's only one right way to live, or worship or whatever and make people who disagree with them disappear in the middle of the night. These guys have pulled that kinda shit before ya know...
best regards,
buck
Acadians are descended from French-Canadian exiles who fled Nova Scotia (aka Acadia) for south Louisiana centuries ago
"exiles who fled" is a bit of a misstatement. They were rounded up by the British, pushed onto ships, and carried off to Louisiana. If Dad happened to be out fishing when his family was carted off -- too bad.
And let the angel whom thou still hast serv'd tell thee ...
"euphamisms". Do you mean "euphemisms"? Or indeed onanism?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."