need a little help Patent on the internet

[crockett]

It's been awhile sice I was here last, not sure if any of you will remember me... but I used to visit everyday.

well my ventures have lead me to doing webmastering on the side and I've run into something that the general public needs to be aware of.

There is a company Acacia Technologies that claims to hold patents for streeming video and all types of other things. this is a quote of what they claim taken from their website..

"a system of distributing video and/or audio information [that] employs digital signal processing to achieve high rates of data compression sent over standard telephone, cable or satellite broadcast channels for later playback and optional recording."

Acacia are claiming they own the rights from video on demand to streeming video across the internet and even across your TV.

Right now this company is targeting Adult webmasters basicly trying to strong arm webmasters into submitting to their terms. In the last weeks Acacia has started targeting schools for online classes, that use streeming video.

I don't think I need to tell you what something like this could mean to the internet it's self.. but it's very real and this is an ongoing battle..

we are looking for "prior art" to prove Acacia didn't invent what they are claiming... basicly we need anything that was used on the net pre 1990, that allowed you to send video or audio across the internet and play it back..

I figure there are a lot of old school people here that maybe able to help in this fight.

If you're interrested you can read about this fight and a few others that are up and comming at:

http://www.fightthepatent.com/

btw this is not my web page, I'm just trying to help spred the word and maybe find some piror art.


thanks

I have published a few news posts about this over the past few months. Many analyst assumed Acacia would eventually give up, as this small company lacks the funding to legally fight large-scale Internet players like Microsoft, Sun, and even the US government.

"a system of distributing video and/or audio information [that] employs digital signal processing to achieve high rates of data compression sent over standard telephone, cable or satellite broadcast channels for later playback and optional recording."

FTP has been used to shuttle data stream transfers for decades. You would simply need to find when the first video compression standard was drafted to correlate the two technologies.

The first true digital video compression standard was introduced in the 1980's. COST211 was a differential pulse code modulated format. It was later standardized by CCITT as H.120.

H.120 is a published standard, and it was available before Acacia even dreamed of this patent garbage. It could be delivered via FTP for playback purposes, thus allowing for on-demand service, later playback, and recording as mentioned in the Acacia statement.

As to true streaming of multimedia, the first IETF draft detailing video datastream transport did not surface until 1996. It should be RFC 1889 to the best of my knowledge.

Robert Richmond

BTW, thanks for the pointing out the widespread interest in this topic. I may publish an editorial tomorrow detailing my thoughts regarding Acacia's claims.

Robert Richmond

[crockett]

np if you need some updated info check the webpage I posted above, the guy that runs it can probally give you any updated info you may need..

as a side note the US patent office just approved a patent today for the "Exit Console" that has been on the internet forever.. basicly a pop up when you leave a webpage... so this is the kind of crazy stuff the patent office approves...

this is the company that now owns the exit console patent (totally unrelated to Acacia)

PATENT NO: US 6,389,458

http://www.ideaflood.com


The internet as you know it is changing, these are only the begining of a long list of internet patents..

Yeah, we have been covering patent problems, like Amazon's recent patents for one and two click Internet shopping. I believe someone patented the submit button concept awhile back as well.

Robert Richmond