Acacia Signs Playboy To DMT Deal

Acacia Research Corp. has pulled a rabbit into its hat – Playboy Enterprises has signed a deal to license Acacia's controversial group of streaming media patents, the validity of which several adult Internet companies have been challenging since early last year.

Acacia executive vice president Robert Berman told AVN.com the Playboy deal – the 118th such DMT licensing agreement for Acacia since they began actively enforcing the patents over a year ago – shows that allegations Acacia was targeting only smaller adult Internet companies were not true.

"We have proven that by licensing large public companies, both in and out of the adult industry," Berman said. "Playboy is another example of that. There is a reason that many of the top porn companies, after spending months with experts studying our patents, have elected to take a license. These companies are not driven by ego or personal gain."

Playboy.com representatives were unavailable for comment before this story went to press. But New Destiny/Homegrown Video chairman Spike Goldberg – who, with VideoSecrets chief Greg Clayman, leads a group of Internet companies fighting the Acacia patents – said he thinks Playboy Enterprises decided, as other adult Internet companies have said they had decided, it might be less costly to sign a licensing deal than to challenge the patents.

"Acacia is showing their best business strategy," Goldberg told AVN.com, "which is the ‘they jump-you jump’ approach. And it comes down to that it's cheaper for the [companies that license] not to fight. They're just hoping everybody will monkey see, monkey do."

"If [Playboy] agreed to the terminology in [those patents], it could come around to bite them later," Clayman said. "It sets a dangerous precedent for other companies out there who might be trying to enforce bogus patents."

Berman again advised that if other companies want to consider licensing the DMT patent group, they should contact Acacia "to work something out. The window is closing, and companies that choose to continue to do nothing will have to deal with the consequences.

"We will talk to anybody that is interested in a licensing deal," he continued. "We will make whatever accommodations we can, but we have to be fair to our existing licensees that have been paying us royalties for months."