Acacia Research is said to be pressing Wi-Fi hotspot operators for royalties over a patent that covers the way Wi-Fi service providers' servers redirect computer users' browsers to a log-in page.
Wi-Fi Networking News has reported hotspot operators saying Acacia began sending them "hefty packets" describing the gateway page redirection patent and Acacia's patent holding rights, which Acacia purchased from LodgeNet.
The publication said Acacia – much the way it did with Adult Internet companies over the Digital Media Transmission patent group – is offering to forego for now past royalties due for those targeted companies who agree to license with Acacia. As with those first Adult Internet companies notified of Acacia’s DMT claims, Acacia is giving the Wi-Fi packet recipients 30 days to answer.
Acacia executive vice president Robert Berman did not return a query for comment from AVNOnline.com before this story went online. But he was quoted as telling Wi-Fi Networking News that the royalties set for the gateway redirect patent are low enough that there "shouldn't be" any affect on the Wi-Fi market and they "should not affect" any Wi-Fi business negatively.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation may be preparing to make sure it affects Acacia negatively, however. Staff attorney Jason Schultz told AVNOnline.com the group plans to help several of the outfits who have received Acacia packets to defend against the gateway redirect patent claim.
"I think you can't teach an old dog new tricks. [Acacia is] once again not going after the major vendors like T-Mobile and Starbucks but they're taking on the little guy, going after small little independent wireless hotspot providers and shaking them down," Schultz said. "It's the same game all over again."
He said there are at least four companies claiming patents on "the exact same technology. So we'll see. [We're] already talking to a number of folks who've received a letter and we're going to help them with a defense plan. Because we think this patent is at least as questionable as the DMT patent."
Redirection, as Wi-Fi Networking News put it, "involves the access point or back-end system capturing any Web page request from an unauthenticated user on the network and redirecting them to a page that contains login or usage information. After successfully logging in, the user is then passed on to their original page or a hotspot information page."
Wi-Fi Networking News said hotspot operators told them Acacia is asking for a $1,000 per year fee for up to 3,500 redirected connections and between five and fifteen cents a redirect for any redirects beyond 3,500 connections. "Anybody who operates a hotspot with redirection can assume they'll hear from us," Berman was quoted as saying to the journal, in terms similar to those Acacia used at the beginning of its campaign to get adult Internet players who stream audio or video to license DMT.
One of the hotspot operators who acknowledged receiving an Acacia information packet was Matrix Networks. Matrix wireless director Nigel Ballard is said to have contacted Nomadix – from whom Matrix bought 37 Wi-Fi boxes – asking for advice on proceeding with the Acacia packet. Matrix has sold Wi-Fi boxes at hotels, and Wi-Fi Networking News said that while Matrix would not have to pay Acacia royalties its customers would.
"If it comes down to it, do we have to go to Hilton and say, 'that box we sold you in good faith, apparently there's a patent infringement'? I don't want to have to do that," Ballard told the journal. The journal said Acacia has chosen to target redirection operators rather than those who make redirect devices because the company could earn more from the operators from recurring revenue than manufacturers from a one-time sale, as Berman was quoted as telling the journal.
Nomadix, in fact, has a patent that includes redirect techniques, but Acacia reportedly believes the patent they bought from LodgeNet predates the Nomadix patent.
"Ultimately if people opt not to license the patent, if they can't show us that they're not infringing, then that could result in patent infringement litigation," Berman was quoted as saying in Wi-Fi Networking News. "It's not our first choice but sometimes that becomes necessary. We have $30 million in the bank and we have the resources to enforce the patent as necessary."
As in the case of adult Internet companies challenging the DMT streaming media patents, there are those in the Wi-Fi world who don't believe Acacia's redirection patent is valid. One of those is former Wayport chief technology officer Jim Thompson, now with NetGate, who said on the Bay Area Wireless Users Group community Website that Wayport was doing wireless gateway redirection before either Acacia or Nomadix filed for their respective patents – which Thompson believes could be grounds to reverse them.
Schultz thinks Acacia's gateway redirection patent claim may prove simpler to disprove. "The idea of a gateway, again, is so simple," he said. "How many universities, for instance, have little logon pages where you give your student ID before you get on the Net? I'm sure this stuff has been around forever."
