CYBERSPACE – Spike Goldberg of Home Grown Video said yesterday that the Markman decision issued earlier this week was a major victory for the adult entertainment industry in its ongoing patent dispute with Acacia Research..CYBERSPACE – Spike Goldberg of Home Grown Video said yesterday that the Markman decision issued earlier this week was a major victory for the adult entertainment industry in its ongoing patent dispute with Acacia Research.
Appearing on YNOT Radio’s weekly Humpday Lunch Show, Goldberg spoke with hosts YNOTBob and LAJ about his response to the ruling. He said that on a scale of one to ten, ten being most positive, the ruling was a “ten” for the adult industry and its Joint Defense Group.
“I would give it a ten, and I’m ecstatic with the decision,” said Goldberg. “It’s better than what I expected.”
A Markman hearing is a legal process that takes place in court in front of a judge and results in definitions for certain technical phrases and terms to be used throughout a patent case. If a term is considered too vague, the judge can rule that the term in question is “indefinable” and can not be used in defense of a claim of infringement. Any claims relying on terms or phrases deemed “indefinable” are therefore in jeopardy.
“We took certain terms and asked the judge to define them and the judge came back and defined some terms by saying there’s no way that somebody skilled in the arts can understand what the heck this is saying, so this is indefinable and I’m going to invite the defendants to offer some sort of motion saying that this is an indefinable term,” explained Goldberg.
When asked for an example, Goldberg said one of the terms deemed indefinable was the term “sequence encoder.”
Although the recent Markman order has been largely called a setback for Acacia, the company promised in a conference call on Tuesday that it plans to press forward with its patent infringement claims against many adult entertainment companies. A company spokesperson said that the company still believes at least six of its patent claims are valid, and pointed out that a single claim could result in adult companies being forced to pay damages.
“The funny part about that is we have no idea what they’re talking about,” said Goldberg. “I don’t know if you heard their conference call yesterday, but they wouldn’t tell anybody what those six claims terms are … they keep on going on about how they only need one, and all this other stuff, but as far as we can see … they don’t know how our systems work and they don’t know how we stream.”
“This was a hit [for Acacia]. There’s no doubt about it,” said Goldberg, who then quickly added, “This is not over by a long shot.”
Asked by host YNOTBob what it would take for Acacia to go away and leave the adult entertainment industry to its business, Goldberg replied, “Going out of business, I imagine.”
“If you listen to the conference call you get a good sense of what kind of people they are,” said Goldberg. “[They are] very pompous, and they don’t have a lot of… they don’t respect other people, and they especially don’t respect our industry and what we do.”
Acacia also has said recently that the company’s request for class action certification also will press on.
“They’re still seeking a class certification,” agreed Goldberg. “We’re still gonna have to fight that attack off.”
Goldberg said that while he feels “compassion” for many of the companies that chose to settle with Acacia, it’s unlikely that any of them will be able to get out of the license agreements that they signed.
“They agreed to these patents,” explained Goldberg. “Unless the patent is found invalid, they’re stuck with their licenses.”
Acacia did not respond to an invitation to appear on YNOT Radio and did not return calls requesting additional comment for this story. The company’s stock has seen drops of more than 30% since the Markman ruling was announced.
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