Newswise — Acacia Technologies, in Newport Beach, Calif., has a group of patents that it claims covers virtually every aspect of transferring digitally encoded media from a server to a customer. A few examples: the downloading of songs to computers and MP3 players such as Apple's iPod, the streaming of video to a PC, the digital distribution of motion pictures to hotel rooms, even the use of a TiVo digital video recorder.
The company already has 120 licensees for its technology, and is pursuing an active lawsuit for patent infringement against another score of companies that have refused to license it, most of them in the "adult entertainment" industry. If Acacia's patents are valid and as broad as Acacia thinks they are, thousands of companies--including titans like Time Warner, Disney, Microsoft, and Sony--and maybe even hundreds of millions of users will have to pay Acacia directly or indirectly. Cable, satellite, and Internet service providers, video-on-demand companies, music sites, the new Web radio enterprises, pornographers--almost anyone delivering digital video or audio across a network--will be liable.
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