Acacia question of the day

[Dravyk]

With Acacia's stock continuing to become cheaper, the idea of buying controlling interest becomes an increasingly intriguing prospect.

Question: Is this legal?

Now, if this were 1934 and a Frank Carpa movie, the poor yokel town victims of the big corporation would in the last ten minutes of the movie end up getting out of their precarious predicament by storming into the corporate headquarters during a board meeting and declare they've bought controlling interest in the evil company, thus saving the day.

But this is nearly 2004, and we're a group of corporations and self-employed pornographers (doesn't play as well on the big screen somehow, does it?), and of course laws have changed radically in the 70-odd years since Capra's big flics.

So, does such a thing violate any law? SEC? RICO? Any business or federal law in any way? Or is it a viable and legitimate avenue of recourse?



Last edited by Dravyk at Nov 18 2003, 08:27 AM

[Carrie]

Most businesses have learned from those days, and make sure that no more than 49% of stock is ever for sale, to make sure that an unfriendly entity cannot take control.
(Key word here being most.)

[FightThePatent]

Originally posted by Dravyk@Nov 18 2003, 05:26 AM
With Acacia's stock continuing to become cheaper, the idea of buying controlling interest becomes an increasingly intriguing prospect.

I understand where you are going with this thought.. but I don't think in this particular case it will help.

Have you calculated how much money it would require to even purchase a controlling stake?

And how can you expect webmasters to rally to the idea of purchasing shares when the Defense Fund, IMPA, and FTPF are all not seeing webmasters provide positive support in the most direct way of defeating the patent?

And what would it solve to have controlling interest in Acacia? What about USA Video? What about all the other patent holders out there?

Money exhausted to purchase stock of a company who's share track record doesn't look so stable, means hard earned money will get lost as the stock deflates and little money left to fight off the next patent abuse case.


Fight the Bulls!

[Paul Markham]

The way their shares are falling, plus the way we are resisting and that Acacia are now going after colleges to try and get money. I cannot see them being able to fund a long court battle.

They are funded by a few licensees, they have been losing money recently, the new licensees do not seem to be paying a lot. They may have to face fighting on a second front soon, plus rents in Newport Beach are not cheap neither is living in that area. All goes to make up a grim future for them.

We on the other hand are funded by the great world wide bunch of people who sign up on a daily basis to jerk off. :)

How can we help?

Well if you buy content sign up to me via this link and I will give 20% of all your purchases direct to the defense fund. (http://www.paulmarkham.com?from=FightAcacia) Make sure you are not supporting people who are working against us. For instance every dollar that goes to a licensee contributes towards Acacia screwing the rest of us. Supporting those who are fighting for us, by sending them traffic, linking to them or any other way you think will help.

[slavdogg]

current market cap
Market Cap: 117.85M

Drav, you would need at least $60 million to get a controlling stake.
But even with that you would still need to get control of BoD.


now let me go take out my silver spood out of my ear and go dig up my backyard for some golden coins to fund this operation :D

[Mike AI]

Very unrealistic idea.....

[Carrie]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Nov 18 2003, 10:19 AM
Very unrealistic idea.....
Unless you're Bill Gates.
Wouldn't it be great if we had him on speed dial? :)

[Dravyk]

Ah well. It wasn't my main thing. I think Patent Reform, especially retroactive, is the best way to take everyone out (the future Acacia's too, that is).

In any event, wasn't endorsing the idea, but, as said asking the question. It had been brought up a lot in the earlier days of the Acacia threat and I hadn't seen it brought up since. With the shares plummetting it was worth bringing it up once more, even if to dismiss it once and for all. :)

[FightThePatent]

Originally posted by Dravyk@Nov 18 2003, 11:02 AM
Ah well. It wasn't my main thing. I think Patent Reform, especially retroactive, is the best way to take everyone out (the future Acacia's too, that is).


Patent Reform and Buying controlling stakes in a company....

you like long shots don't ya :biglaugh:



I agree with you that Patent Reform is needed.. and maybe the FTC's recent involvement will help to make some changes in the way patent enforcement is handled.

Invalidating bad patents directly with the USPTO is a short term solution....reposting the summary of concersations with patent attorneys on the USPTO re-exam option:


Some info concerning patent re-examination request like the one that is being done against the Eolas patent (Microsoft lost in court to Eolas for allowing IE to use hahahahahaed programs like Flash). The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has petitioned the USPTO and the USPTO has accepted the request.

Usually takes 3-6 months after filing to be addressed. Due to public outcry, the request took 1 week and the USPTO Director personally approved the re-exam request!

Information gathered from talking to several patent attorneys on re-exams:

The patent examiner will spend about 15 hours total on the re-exam..which is alot more time than is spent on the actual patent(!!!) before coming to a preliminary decision, before then talking to the patent holder.

A person or company pays the filing fee (about $1,300) and then needs to have a patent attorney craft explanations of prior art to invalidate the patent claims. The estimate cost is about $30k-$50K for the whole process in attorney time, not to mention money spent to find prior art.

A completed document is filed to the USPTO...and then the examiner reviews the information and discusses with the patent holder. The review is one-sided..only the patent holder is allowed to discuss the prior art points with the examiner.

The process could take 6-8 months (or longer) before a final decision is made.

If the prior art is solid and the patent holder cannot explain away the evidence, then the patent is revoked and invalidated.

It is better to argue in court with a judge, then to take your chances with submitting a document to the USPTO. Atleast with a judge, you can argue your points....with the re-exam, there is not discussion.

The downside is that the patent holder can continue to gain new licensees of their patent, until the final outcome has been determined.



Fight the Delays!

[Dravyk]

Originally posted by FightThePatent@Nov 18 2003, 02:32 PM
Patent Reform and Buying controlling stakes in a company....

you like long shots don't ya :biglaugh:
As I said, the buying shares was a question that I saw brought up a while back and not answered well at the time. Was worth bringing it up again. And no it's not something I necessarily support. So, let's just make that clear.

As for Patent Reform, yes I do. And the more I see the more it is not a long shot. It may have been somewhat more of one when I first called for it, a few weeks prior to
when the FTC started taking wind of the Eolas situation. Even then it was worth it. There will be too many frivilous lawsuits, economic harm and trillions spent in the next ten years or so if the ridiculous patents are given a green light to legal extortion.

Since the news of the patent review with Eolas and the study that came out recommending this, it is not at all a long shot.

Either way, I prefer nukes, FTP. Not bloody and costly wars fought one hill at a time (one case at a time) and while everyone waits for that one battle thousands of others are taken to the cleaners. (How many webmasters and companies will be left standing by the time a trial -- if it gets to that -- comes up between Acacia and the IMPA-sued companies in 2005???)

Everyone agrees the atom bombs dropped on Japan saved millions of lives on both sides. We need a legislative nuke to similiarly save millions of dollars (and hundreds perhaps thousands of companies), and yes I'm all for that as the best (not the only, but the best) way to fight this enemy ... and the one behind it and the thousands behind them.

[FightThePatent]

Originally posted by Dravyk@Nov 18 2003, 12:11 PM
Everyone agrees the atom bombs dropped on Japan saved millions of lives on both sides. We need a legislative nuke to similiarly save millions of dollars
I have read some posts that think they know where a nuke should be dropped to end this.

:bdance:



Fight the Fallout!