News of 2004	Irish EU Presidency to "protect software inventions" in May	EPO grants video streaming patent to Acacia

EPO grants video streaming patent to Acacia

The European Patent Office has granted the US patent rent extraction company Acacia Research a patent with a broad claim on almost any practical method of making videos available via web. Acacia has enforced the US cousin of this patent against numerous porn websites as well as universities and has also been sending warning letters to companies in Europe.

Acacia video streaming patent on Espacenet

Acacia video streaming patent at EPOLine

with current status of the procedings, which are not yet closed

EP0933892

version in FFII database, with ocr result of granted patent.

Acacia PR

proudly announces that the patent was granted in Europe and will be enforced there as well.

Acacia EP20030090118

Another patent application of Acacia, currently pending at EPO

EP0566662

another EPO-granted patent of Acacia, equivalent of US5132992.

The registered applicant is Greenwich Technologies, but the patent is registered as a part of Acacias patent portifolio

Acacia in Denmark

Acacia has been sending warning letters to Danish companies, asking them to pay royalties for on its US and EP patents EP0566662 et al.

Acacia Patents

The company explains its own portfolio

FightThePatent.com

A US site dedicated to fighting Acacia's patents.

http://www.fightthepatent.com/v2/PreMarkman.html

article by Brandon Shalton of FightThePatent.com about the upcoming Markman Hearing (2004-02-06) with a link to opinion papers submitted by each side for the Markman Hearing

Heise 2004/01/14 on Acacia EP patent

report of german web news service, based on Acacia's press release.

JR Media

A Swedish media company that has been attacked by Acacia. They are active in the US as well, but Acacia's warning letter also mentioned EP patents.

Their CEO explained on the patents at aful mailing list on 2004/01/17:

Just wanted to say that I'm paying my second license fee to Acacia now. Paid for 2003 and 2004. I live in sweden and they claim it covers it here aswell. My servers is in the US and they already managed to shut down one biz by going after his webbhost. Many things behind that decision but then again you can never be sure. I run a few adults sites and have a few videos there. I do not belive in their patents and I think they will fail in court if the court has any brains. This will affect every little homepage with sound or videoclip of their children as well as all professional sites. If their patent is valid all over they will be one of most succesful companies in the world. If anyone belive they will win, you better buy their stocks now.