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Patent Litigation Weekly: Acacia Stock Price Holds Firm Despite Company's Third Trial Loss
,----[ Quote ]
| Acacia's first quarter filing also
| indicates the company is wielding its
| patents against more targets than ever
| before: It reached 40 new licensing
| agreements in the first quarter of 2010,
| compared with 29 the previous year.
|
| In the case of Red Hat and Novell, the two
| companies opted against signing such
| agreements and chose to go to trial
| instead. In doing so, they faced a hurdle
| common to defendants in patent trials:
| winning over jurors with little or no prior
| knowledge about the technology at issue in
| the case--open-source software, in this
| instance.
`----
http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202457878810&Patent_Litigation_Weekly_Acacia_Stock_Price_Holds_Firm_Despite_Companys_Third_Trial_Loss__
Is it time to get realistic about the EU patent and move on to other things?
,----[ Quote ]
| What is absolutely clear to me is that a
| lot of people have a lot invested in the
| current system and want to see it changed
| as little as possible. National patent
| offices currently control the EPO, for
| example, and make a lot of money from it.
| They would still get substantial amounts of
| cash under van Pottlelsberghe's proposals,
| but their influence would wane and they
| would no lomger grant national patents.
| Then there is the legal profession. Just a
| couple of lines from the paper make it
| abundantly clear why so many patent
| attorneys and lawyers in Europe (not all,
| it is important to point out) are opposed
| to reform.
`----
http://www.iam-magazine.com/blog/Detail.aspx?g=5f3724cc-2a43-40f3-8c49-4988347d348c
In re Alappat (1994, USA)
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/In_re_Alappat
Recent:
Novell, Red Hat win verdict in Linux case
,----[ Quote ]
| Red Hat Inc. and Novell Inc. won a verdict
| in a case brought by a Texas company that
| claimed their Linux-based products infringed
| patents for ways to share icons across
| computer workstations.
`----
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/05/01/novell_red_hat_win_verdict_in_linux_case/
Red Hat wins patent court fight
,----[ Quote ]
| Red Hat has won a legal fight with a small
| Texas company that claimed the Raleigh-based
| software maker infringed on its patents.
`----
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/04/30/461618/red-hat-wins-patent-court-fight.html
The Ticker
,----[ Quote ]
| Walthamâs Novell and Red Hat of Raleigh, N.C.,
| won a federal verdict in a case brought by a
| Texas company that claimed their Linux-based
| software products infringed patents for ways to
| share icons across computer workstations.
`----
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view/20100501the_ticker/srvc=business&position=also
Federal Circuit Judge Rader Takes Tech Suits in Texas
,----[ Quote ]
| Already this month, Rader has dismissed one
| patent case against Google and Yahoo on
| summary judgment and trimmed back damages
| theories in a lawsuit against Red Hat and
| Novell. These are somewhat unusual rulings
| for the Eastern District of Texas, which
| historically has not killed as many patent
| cases on summary judgment as other venues.
|
| [...]
|
| â In IP Innovation v. Red Hat, another case
| also involving plaintiff IP Innovation, this
| time against Red Hat and Novell, Rader made
| a statement on the hot button issue of
| damages in patent cases. The judge
| questioned the plaintiff expert's use of the
| "entire market value" rule, which calculates
| damages based on a percentage of total sales
| even if only a small feature of a product
| like a computer is infringing.
|
| "Mr. Gemini's current expert report
| improperly inflates both the royalty base
| and the royalty rate by relying on
| irrelevant or unreliable evidence and by
| failing to account for the economic
| realities of this claimed component as part
| of a larger system," Rader wrote (.pdf).
|
| Red Hat and Novell are being represented by
| Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher lawyers from San
| Francisco.
`----
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202446137751&Federal_Circuit_Judge_Rader_Takes_Tech_Suits_in_Texas
Related:
Paul Ware and Acacia
,----[ Quote ]
| Ware and Financial Systems Innovation, LLC (a subsidiary of Acacia, formerly
| a subsidiary of TechSearch, the company now known as Global Patent Holdings)
| have filed 10 patent litigations in the last four years, against 144
| defendants. Friedman, Suder & Cooke is representing Ware and Acacia in all of
| the litigation, most of which are pending either in the Northern District of
| Georgia or Northern District of Texas. The big filing was one last June
| against 106 defendants, which I reported on here. While 3 of Ware's cases
| were settled, the rest were stayed pending the first reexamination. There are
| motions in each of those cases to lift the stay. Some are being granted, but
| in other cases, more trouble brews.
`----
http://trolltracker.blogspot.com/2008/01/paul-ware-and-acacia.html
Sprint Nextel, Acacia unit settle patent suit
,----[ Quote ]
| A subsidiary of Acacia Research Corp. and Sprint Nextel Corp. have settled a
| lawsuit alleging that Sprint Nextel had infringed on patents for technology
| used to display mobile vehicle information on maps.
`----
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/local-news/kansascity/2008/01/02/sprint-nextel-acacia-unit-settle-patent-suit
Top Ten Patent Trolls of 2007
,----[ Quote ]
| 3. Acacia. I didn't start tracking Acacia carefully until the summer. But
| still, on my blog I have reported on over two dozen lawsuits brought by
| Acacia this year, against more than 235 defendants. That's in addition to the
| over 200 lawsuits Acacia filed in previous years against hundreds and
| hundreds of defendants. And that's not including the two lawsuits (at least)
| Acacia has filed in December against 20 more defendants (yes, Acacia, I'm
| watching you). Acacia's business model, as a publicly traded company, is to
| accumulate patents and sue as many companies as possible in order to extract
| licenses. They have a market cap of over 275 million - that pays for a lot of
| lawsuits. Unlike other trolls, Acacia tends to not focus on one court in
| particular, although they have sampled the Eastern District of Texas more
| this year than in the past.
`----
http://trolltracker.blogspot.com/2007/12/top-ten-patent-trolls-of-2007.html
Playing Microsoft Patent Poker
,----[ Quote ]
| This time though, while Ballmer slinks away to try to con â convince people
| that Microsoft Unified Communications somehow offers people more than what
| Cisco's VOIP (voice over IP) been offering customers for years, a patent
| attack finally launches at Linux. Specifically, IP Innovation, a subsidiary
| of Acacia Technologies Group, has filed a patent infringement claim against
| Linux distributors Novell and Red Hat.
|
| So was it just timing, or was it something more? Let's take a look at the
| players.
`----
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2201579,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000616
,----[ Quote ]
| "There you have it. At least a third of SCO's entire market
| capitalization, and their entire current cash reserves, is payoffs
| funnelled from Microsoft. Their 10Qs reveal that every other line of
| cash inflow is statistical noise by comparison. The brave new
| SCO source business model is now clear: sue your customers, shill
| for Microsoft, kite your stock, and pray you stay out of jail."
`----
http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween10.html
Friday Patent Litigation News
,----[ Quote ]
| Reader Anthony Sabatini of New York writes to tell me that the auto-text
| patent asserted by Acacia subsidiary AutoText in Cleveland might be invalid
| in light of the Control Data Corp CDC6600 console system developed two
| decades earlier.
|
| [...]
|
| Finally, IP Innovation and Technology Licensing Corp. -- in other words,
| ACACIA -- filed a lawsuit in Marshall against Google, accusing Google's
| search engine and Google Earth of infringing two patents. This is the same
| Acacia sub that sued Red Hat and Novell over Linux, with the same lawyers -
| Johnny Ward and Eric Albritton. But these are different patents. The patents
| asserted against Google are 5,276,785 and 5,675,819, which Acacia got from
| Xerox. Nice going, Xerox.
`----
http://trolltracker.blogspot.com/2007/11/friday-patent-litigation-news.html
Acacia and Niro File Another Multi-Defendant Lawsuit on JPEG-on-a-Website
Patent, Bringing Total to 16 Companies Sued
,----[ Quote ]
| Assuming it files one per month for the next 39 months until the patent
| expires, then what Acacia is really seeking is $600M from US industry for the
| JPEG-on-a-website patent. My guess is theyâll sue many more companies than
| that, and seek up to a billion dollars â which, assuming a 33% contingency
| fee (which is low, probably), amounts to a cool $100 million per year for the
| Niro firm.
|
| And people wonder why heâd like to shut down websites critical of Acacia and
| other patent trolls. The real question is what does he want from you and me,
| for our photo blogs, our personal websites. His statements to IP Law 360 only
| referred to companies.
|
| The other real question is how many companies will spend millions in
| attorneys fees to fight rather than pay the $500K or $1M or $2M that Acacia
| is demanding. That's the sad state of patent litigation these days.
`----
http://trolltracker.blogspot.com/2007/12/acacia-and-niro-file-another-multi.html
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