Re: Acacia Internet Access Redirection

On Tue, Oct 05, 2004 at 08:00:44PM -0700, Jacob S. Barrett wrote:
> Today I received an information packet from Acacia Technologies Group 
> informing me that I was in volation of their patent on "IAR" [1].  IAR is a 
> US Patent 6,226,677 [2].  That packet suggest that I must license their 
> technology or face legal action.  Has anyone else received this same 
> extortion letter?
> 
> The claims the the patent text lead me to believe they don't have much to 
> stand on.  If I read the abstract and claim one correctly then it doesn't 
> cover a system that doesn't change the destination address.  Any solution 
> that uses the IPFW fwd [3] rule would not modify the destination address and 
> therefore does not meet claim 1.  I'm I correct in my logic?
> 

Seems very similar to the stuff Divine was doing, a la shopping carts,
et al. - suing small to medium sized companies making profit, but not
able to afford patent attorneys. 

http://www.divineintervention.us/

My wife was webmaster of a company that caved in and paid them (less
than 60 days before they went Chapter 11) and I was working for a
company that was using similar allegedly infringing technology that had
helped my wife's company develop their website. We were also their
webhost at the time.


I do recommend banding together with other people named in the suit and
trying to present a united front. I know it's very hard, especially
when a few bucks can just 'make the problem go away', which is what most
PHB's want. 

I'm sorry my post isn't more helpful to you, but if you try and ally
earlier than later, you might have more luck than the people who
did/didn't fight off the Divine lawsuits. 

j

-- 

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