Two days after Acacia Research signed a licensing deal for its controversial streaming media patent group with the World Wrestling Federation, a group of adult Internet companies has filed a motion for a summary judgment declaring invalid the bulk of the Digital Media Transmission patent group.
“The short version is, we’re seeking the court to rule that the claims aren’t valid for several reasons,” said Victor de Gyarfas, a patent law attorney who is one of the challengers’ representatives in the case, referring to eighteen claim terms in one of the DMT patents and all 42 claims in the other.
“The identification encoding means term in the 992 patent is indefinite, the sequencing encoder term in the 702 patent is indefinite, and the identification encoder term in the 702 patent is not supported by any structure and therefore claims that use that term are invalid.”
In a tentative Markman order handed down late July 12, U.S. District Judge James Ware ruled that some claim terms in the DMT group claim were indefinable, while others were held definable on Acacia’s terms.
Acacia executive vice president Robert Berman was unavailable for comment before this story went to press, but New Destiny/Homegrown Video chief Spike Goldberg and VS Media chief Greg Clayman – who co-lead a group of adult Internet companies challenging the DMT patents – said they were happy with the filing.
“Most of the claims are going the way of the Corvair,” said Clayman. “Both patents are like we have said: these patents have taken major hits and many of the claims are pretty much being opened to invalidity.”
“There’s not a lot of moves to go anymore,” Goldberg said. “Acacia is running out of time. Time is not on their side. This is a major blow to Acacia’s effort to get this industry to capitulate on licensing patents we do not infringe."
De Gyarfas said if Ware rules in the challengers’ favor on this motion, they were likely to move for a summary judgment of non-infringement. Acacia will have time to write and file their opposition to the invalidation motion, de Gyarfas continued, followed by the challengers writing and filing their reply to that opposition before a hearing on the motion. That hearing is set for December 2.
The new DMT licensing deal with the WWE covers all non-live streaming and downloads of audio and video content from WWE.com and a reported two hundred other WWE-owned sites, including WWE Video Library and Match Jukebox.
