20. Homegrown is a big supporter of the fight against Acacia. (Thank you for this BTW!). We haven't heard anything about this case in some time. Are you still paying for the defense, and can you update us on it?
Homegrown Video and VS Media together organized the first meeting to decide what to do about Acacia - which is an old enough problem that there are plenty of people new to the industry that don't even know what it means.
When Acacia claimed to own all the patents to stream or download audio and video then we were primed to call bull on it immediately. We had been doing streaming since windows media was called "netshow" and we were unconvinced that Acacia Technologies had clue one about what streaming even was. Like a bunch of people that got their letter at the time it seemed more like a shake down and a con somewhere along the same lines as the bank in Nigeria transfer deal.
We put together a defense group when we realized that Acacia already held a reputation of being patent pirates and had been beaten back on their V chip patent.
We learned quickly, and the hard way, that there were plenty of companies that did not share our view and were willing to sign up to acacia's patents claiming that it was the wisest move for the business. Some of the companies that settled also tried to cast aspersions on our efforts by saying that we were being unnecessarily litiginous, rash, etc.
Now those people are still paying fees while we have been coasting along while the mainstream tries to catch up. Several of their claims have essentially been nullified and in my opinion the rest is not going to make us lose any sleep or have to spend much money. Acacia will probably eventually appeal but that is just the way these things go apparently.
Many kudos to my partner Spike that has been the main point person on the case since day one. Now I do admit that the amount of time this has taken up has been an unpleasant issue at times. However, I can also certainly say that this problem has brought us allies that we would never have expected and given us a crystal clear lens into seeing the kind of companies that we like to do business with and that alone is completely invaluable.
Some would also say that our efforts have proved that our industry is not the "low hanging fruit" that Acacia supposed we were and so this protected us all from further attacks by similar entities. I don't really know if that is true or not but it does have a heroic ring to it doesn't it?
In the end, being involved in any law suit is simply not worth it unless you believe it is your only recourse to a solution. If that is the case then you have to be willing to put some cash behind it. When I see a lot of people in the industry claiming that so and so is going to be sued for this or that I laugh because I know most of them have zero clue what the price tag is that goes along with that.
