Does anyone worry about Acacia anymore?

[cd34]

Originally Posted by Bill

I've wondered if this might eventually affect hosting, tho. That is, could hosts be held liable for patent infringement if they provide unlicensed streaming video?

Basically, in my T&C I have to say that the material "you" agree to host is legal in your jurisdiction. I cannot censor your content if I disagree with it if it is legal. I can also exclude types of content that I might find objectionable. However, I cannot overstep my T&C and police content that is uploaded .

As for censorship, if I censor content that is hosted, and miss some content, I could be held liable for the content I missed.

As a hosting company I am treated with Common Carrier status as a result of these actions and inactions. I am no more liable for what is hosted than the phone company is for someone making an illegal drug purchase on a cellphone.

That's my attorney's view on it and he is willing to defend based on that view. There have been numerous cases regarding common carrier status for hosting companies and Internet Service providers.

As for the patent's validity, I don't believe it is valid. However, as I understand patent law and the appeal process, a case must be decided before the patent can be called into question. Infringment of the existing patent, valid or not, exists. After there has been one case, the PTO can look into the patent. Again, the Eolas Patent clearly defined this procedure.

Eolas held a patent for a way to do inline web applications. ActiveX and Shockwave would have violated this patent. Eolas sued Microsoft regarding ActiveX and won a judgement for $521 million for infringement. Microsoft could not challenge the validity of the patent until after the case was concluded. The PTO did overturn and nullify the patent due to Prior Art if I recall. I think the claim was that <embed> was meant for html, not applications like flash, multimedia, activeX and therefore, the patent was issued based on calling applications. The patent was filed in 1994, granted in 1998, nullified in 2004. Its not a quick process.