On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 10:52:52AM -0500, Antonio Rodriguez wrote:
| Ownership of Streaming Audio and Video Challenged
|
| Acacia Media Technologies has sent letters to a number of colleges and
| universities essentially claiming that patents it owns govern file
| transfer over the Internet, or any local network. In essence, Acacia
| is claiming that its ownership of the patents cover streaming,
| all
| audio and video files which are stored on one computer and which can
| be accessed (i.e., by downloading of the file) on another computer at
| the request of that second computer.
I guaruntee that they don't have a patent on HTTP.
| It appears that the video files
| do not have to be motion pictures; they can be simple JPEG
JPEG is an open standard created jointly by several companies and
organizations. I find it highly unlikely that this particular company
owns any patents on JPEG methods, and if they did they would have had
to enforce them decades ago to realistically maintain any claim of
ownership.
| or tif or
I don't know much about TIFF files (other than expanding acronym).
| even PDF files
If anyone, it's Adobe who owns PDF patents and copyrights.
| (digitization, i.e. creation of the files is not a part
| of Acacia's patents).
| Acacia's claims affect, for example audio and
| video associated with eCollege's online courses. Acacia has targeted
| distance education, stating in its letters to higher education
| institutions that it will forgo claims for past infringement of its
| patents if the institution will sign Acacia's "standard" license and
| pay a 2% royalty on it distance education revenues.
This sounds like a fraudulent scheme for obtaining large quantities of
money (and some notoriety to go with it) to me.
| Link: http://www.aacc.nche.edu/Template.cfm?Section=NewsandEvents&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=11701&InterestCategoryID=272
-D
--
He who finds a wife finds what is good
and receives favor from the Lord.
Proverbs 18:22
www: http://dman13.dyndns.org/~dman/ jabber: dman@dman13.dyndns.org
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