Formalizing a move they first began in December, Acacia Research Corp. has filed in federal court to create a single class of defendants to cover all adult Internet companies it claims infringing its Digital Media Transmission group of streaming media patents.
Executive vice president Robert Berman was unavailable for comment April 23, but he had told AVNOnline.com in December that moving for class action status fit "with our previously announced strategy of reaching all infringers." The class action is aimed at proving validity and enforceability of the DMT patent group, not to mention, as Acacia had suggested previously, giving Acacia the opportunity not to have to re-litigate various issues repeatedly.
Adult Check parent Cybernet Ventures has been named the class representative, with Python Video parent Global Media possibly being dropped as the co-class representative, since reports indicate the latter was not mentioned in that regard in this week's filing.
Neither VideoSecrets chieftain Greg Clayman nor New Destiny/Homegrown Video chieftain Spike Goldberg, whose companies are leading the challenge to Acacia's DMT claims, were impressed upon learning of the formal class action filing. "All this amounts up to," Clayman told AVNOnline.com, "is Acacia's desire to run up legal costs and not to stick to the substance and the facts of the case, which they know they're not going to win on."
Goldberg said the class action filing made it "very apparent that Acacia is moving away from their boisterous stance against the online industry, and are focusing now on cable." Earlier this week, Acacia announced its technologies group produced $599,000 in revenues in the first quarter of the year, and the company focused on DMT licensings involving mainstream streaming media users like CinemaNow, Disney, General Dynamics, LodgeNet, and Virgin Radio, among others.
"That shift in rhetoric is interesting because I think Acacia might be seeing that there is a train on the track and it's almost at them," Goldberg said with a small chuckle. "We are all eagerly awaiting the judge's rulings [in the litigation challenge, now at the Markman-hearing preliminary stage], and that is the only thing that is fact here. That's the one thing I know will be free of Acacia's spin."
