Acacia Research Corp. has a Mouse in the house: Disney Enterprises – including Walt Disney Internet Group, operating Websites for Disney, ABC News, and ESPN – has signed a license agreement with Acacia over its Digital Media Transmission group of streaming media patents. These are the patents now under challenge in court by a number of adult Internet companies that question their validity.
Acacia executive vice president Robert Berman was unavailable for comment as this story went to press; nor was any spokesman from Disney Enterprises. But the deal with the Mouse means Acacia now has 116 DMT licensing deals.
FightThePatent.com creator/operator Brandon Shalton was less than thrilled to learn of the Disney deal, saying he knew of "several visits" by Disney and "some of its properties" to his site – which exists to provide information and support to those challenging the Acacia patent claims – yet received no contact from Disney about "what kind of prior art" he and others may have found.
"There is an urban myth that larger companies that sign with Acacia must mean that the patent is valid," Shalton said. "My favorite saying comes to mind: 'It was a business decision.'"
VideoSecrets chief Greg Clayman, who co-leads a group of adult Internet companies challenging the Acacia patent claims, said the Acacia/Disney agreement reminded him of a deal Acacia made with Radio Free Virgin over a year ago.
"If you look at Disney's online streaming and pay-per-view holdings, including ABC and ESPN," Clayman said, "I don't think they come anywhere even close to streaming and charging the amount of money anyone in the adult industry does for their content. Most of (Disney's) content is free, and the way Acacia makes their money is royalties off money made."
"All this says to me," said New Destiny/Homegrown Video chief Spike Goldberg, Clayman's co-leader in the challenge to the patents, "is that Acacia is hoping that, by running as many of these names through the queue as possible, that people will fear and behold Acacia's power."
Like Shalton, both Clayman and Goldberg questioned whether Disney, in Goldberg's words, "did any due diligence" and looked into the actualities of the patent claims before they signed the licensing deal. "If you're going to go out and sign," Goldberg said, "wouldn't you want to know everything at stake here?"
The challenge to Acacia's patents arrived at last in federal court when round one of the so-called Markman process – in which a trial judge hears evidence and definitions before determining asserted patent claims as matters of law – began earlier this month.
In that February 6 hearing, Acacia's legal team argued that the "novel architecture" of the DMT patent group claim was "its combination of all the elements… There is no prior art that includes all elements together." The defense argued, in turn, that Acacia "harmonized" existing technologies, aiming not for "novel architecture" but, rather, user convenience, the user able to control when and where he could see or hear streaming media.
