If you want to win the game.....

[sarettah]

If you want to win a football game, you always scout the other team.

So, out of curiosity last night I endeavoured to find out who exactly Acacia was and what their previous games had looked like.

Who Is Acacia

As has been publically noted by Aacacia themselves, the current Acacia team is largely comprised of folks who used to work for Gemstar.

From acacia's presentation on their site: http://www.acaciatechnologies.com/2003ACTG...files/frame.htm

ACACIA TECHNOLOGIES Legal & Advisors

vRod Dorman - Hennigan, Bennett & Dorman - Chief Outside Trial Counsel for Gemstar (1991-2000)

Lee Rahn - Christie, Parker & Hale - Directed Patent Prosecution for Gemstar (1991-2000)

Jim Newbrough - Director, Video Marketing - RCA Consumer Electronics
Sr. V.P. & General Manager, Television & Video Groups - Philips Electronics

Rolf Schiering - V.P. Video Group, Thomson Multimedia
President - Gemstar Europe

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It is interesting to note also that RCA apparently has interest in Gemstar as does Thomson, which is apparently a subsidiary of RCA:

From RCA's trademarks page: http://www.rca.com/content/viewdetail/1,28...5-CI255,00.html?
linked to from it's "about" page: http://www.rca.com/content/index/0,2808,CI257,00.html?

Trademark Information

Gemstar eBook and the eBook logo are trademarks of Gemstar Development Corp. Gemstar is a registered trademark of GDC. The eBook system is manufactured under license from Gemstar. All other company, brand and product names may be registered trademarks or trademarks of their repective companies and are hereby recognized.

All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.

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Ok, so who/what is Gemstar

Gemstar is a company that was formed by Henry Yueng, an ex Caltech Mathematics professor:

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflas...2000124_470.htm

Meet Henry Yuen: The Gatekeeper for Interactive TV
The chairman of Gemstar-TV Guide owns more than 100 tech patents that can let your TV act like a computer -- and he's ready to collect

Forget Barry, Rupert, and Michael. The most important guy in the media world today may very well be a slight, one-time Cal Tech mathematician who favors Dockers khakis and owl-shaped eye glasses. That would be Henry Yuen, the 52-year-old chairman of Gemstar-TV Guide. I recently had the chance to sit down with Henry, as he's widely known in media circles, at a cable-television conference in Los Angeles. And even a crusty old reporter like me came away convinced that most of the media moguls in the world are going to soon be paying Henry a nickel (and probably more) every time someone turns on a TV, fires up their VCR, or does just about anything else in this new world of interactive TV.

Henry Yuen owns or controls more than 100 patents that will one day make your television act very much like your computer, giving you the opportunity to order products or movies, or even answer your mail with the flick of a remote control. The listing of upcoming TV shows that scrolls across Channel 1 on your cable TV? Henry's company owns the patents to that. If those scrolls give way to interactive guides capable of turning your TV set into the portal to the world, as such heavyweights as Barry Diller and John Malone told the L.A. conference, Henry stands to clean up big-time (see See BW Online, 5/24/00, "Will Gemstar Be Our Guide to the Future?").

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Gemstar's made most of it's money by effectively enforcing their various patents for "Interactive TV". Using an Army of lawyers, they ran a very efficient program of getting licensees to sign up (sound familiar). They apparently sued anything that looked like it might infringe, their successes were based on settlements, not actual court wins. Probably their biggest settlement ended up with Gemstar owning TV-Guide through a merger of TV Guide and Gemstar to form Gemstar-TV-Guide Interactive, supposedly a 14 BILLION dollar deal.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflas...2000124_470.htm

"It's a model striking enough to bring media titans Murdoch and Malone his way, collective hats in hand. The two Ms were majority owners in TV Guide, the famed television magazine that owned a competing technology and patents for TV program guides. At one point, TV Guide and Gemstar sued each other, but eventually the former threw in the towel. So TV Guide and Gemstar all merged earlier this year, in effect locking up virtually every relevant patent. Murdoch's News Corp. owns a 43% stake in the company, but Henry continues to be chairman and CEO.

Put together, Gemstar-TV Guide International is one powerful company. TV Guide brings 34 million subscribers and a brand name unmatched in the TV business. Already, its TV Guide program is in more than 50 million U.S. cable homes. News Corp. brings massive ability to put that guide in front of other homes as well, with Murdoch controlling satellite holdings in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. "

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So much like the Acacia strategy we are seeing now, Gemstar used a strategy of bullying companies into licencing with them.

This strategy was hugely successful for Gemstar. They utilized it to build their company into a multi billion dollar entity on the back of their patents and their army of lawyers across about a 10 year period.

Ok, so what happened next ?

In October 2000 Gemstar filed a lawsuit against EchoStar Communications.

Gemstar Files Patent Infringement Suit Against EchoStar
Business Editors

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 23, 2000--Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. (Nasdaq:GMST) today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary StarSight Telecast Inc. has filed a patent infringement suit against EchoStar Communications Corp., EchoStar Satellite Corp. and EchoStar Technology Corp. (NasdaqISH) in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.

The suit claims, among other matters, that EchoStar willfully infringed certain StarSight intellectual property by virtue of EchoStar's deployment, marketing, offers to sell and sale of direct broadcast satellite receivers containing an unlicensed interactive program guide and by Ecostar's operation of transmission systems to such receivers. StarSight, among other relief, is seeking an injunction and monetary damages.

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In February 2001, Gemstar filed a complaint with the International Trade Commision against 4 companies that were importing set-top cable/satellite boxes into the United States, claiming that the 4 companies; Pioneer, Echo Star Communications, Scientific-Atlanta and SCI Systems were infringing Gemstar's patents.

This time, however, instead of managing to get the 4 companies to settle, several of the companies filed countersuits against Gemstar for various trade issues and questioning the validity of the patents in question.

What resulted was a series of court decisions against Gemstar.

November 2002

http://www.sciatl.com/news/02Nov04-1.htm

Scientific-Atlanta Announces Latest Favorable Ruling Against Gemstar

--Judge finds that Scientific-Atlanta's Explorer® 3000 and 8600x products don't infringe two Gemstar patents--

ATLANTA, GA - Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. announced today that the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia has granted another summary judgment in its favor and against Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc. The latest summary judgment finds that Scientific-Atlanta's Explorer® 3000 and 8600x set-top boxes do not infringe any claims of U.S. patent numbers 5,508,815 and 5,568,272. The Court's decision was based on its October 2001 "Markman" Order construing the terms in the patents. The Court had previously granted a summary judgment in favor of Scientific-Atlanta regarding the same two patents and Scientific-Atlanta's Explorer 2000 set-tops. There are additional Gemstar and Scientific-Atlanta patents at issue in the Georgia court

June 2002

http://legacy.pioneerelectronics.com/Pione...40,2705,00.html

Pioneer Electronics (USA) INC. Applauds Ruling Against Gemstar in ITC Patent Case


Long Beach, CA June 21, 2002

Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. ("Pioneer"), a leader in cable television digital set-top boxes, today announced it is very pleased with the ruling of Administrative Law Judge Paul J. Luckern in a patent infringement investigation following a complaint filed by Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc., about sixteen months ago in the United States International Trade Commission. The judge's ruling that importation of certain Pioneer Corporation set-top boxes does not infringe Gemstar's patents supports Pioneer's original position in the proceeding that Gemstar should not prevail in its claims. In addition to finding that Pioneer does not infringe Gemstar's patents, the judge also ruled that Gemstar misused one of its patents, a further reason for denying Gemstar's requested relief.

Judge Luckern found "no violation by any respondent of section 337." Specifically, in his conclusions of law, Judge Luckern found that Gemstar had failed to establish that any of the respondents had infringed Gemstar's patents. In addition, Judge Luckern found that Gemstar had engaged in patent misuse with respect to one of the patents.

June 2003

http://www.forbes.com/personalfinance/reti...rtr1004864.html

Gemstar patent claim against EchoStar dismissed
Reuters, 06.19.03, 7:42 AM ET

NEW YORK, June 19 (Reuters) - Satellite broadcaster EchoStar (nasdaq: DISH - news - people) on Thursday said a U.S. federal judge had granted its motion for summary judgment against a unit of Gemstar-TV Guide International (nasdaq: DISH - news - people) in a patent dispute.

EchoStar, of Littleton, Colorado, said the ruling by a judge in U.S. District Court in Atlanta upheld its argument that Gemstar Development Corp. did not fully own a patent covering Gemstar's electronic TV program guide and therefore could not enforce it.

July 2003

http://www.sciatl.com/news/03Jul02-1.htm

Scientific-Atlanta Announces Favorable Ruling Against Gemstar

--Judge finds another set of Gemstar patents not infringed by Scientific-Atlanta--

ATLANTA, GA Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. announced that the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia has granted one of Scientific-Atlanta’s motions for summary judgment against Gemstar-TV Guide International and related entities. In an Order dated June 30, 2003, the Court granted summary judgment holding that Scientific-Atlanta’s set-top boxes do not infringe Gemstar’s U.S. patent numbers 5,038,211 and 5,293,357. The Court also found that Gemstar may not raise any new claims for infringement against Scientific-Atlanta under these patents because Gemstar failed to assert any such claims within the deadlines set by the Court. The Court’s decision was based on its October 2002 Order construing the terms in the patents. There are additional Gemstar and Scientific-Atlanta patents at issue in the Atlanta court.

July 2003 again

http://www.sciatl.com/news/03Jul21-2.htm

Scientific-Atlanta Announces Another Favorable Ruling Against Gemstar

--Second Favorable Ruling Within 30-Day Period--

ATLANTA, GA Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. announced that the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia has granted another of Scientific-Atlanta’s motions for summary judgment against Gemstar-TV Guide International and related entities. In an Order dated July 18, 2003, the Court granted summary judgment holding that Scientific-Atlanta’s set-top boxes do not infringe Gemstar’s U.S. patent number 4,751,578. The Court’s decision was based on its October, 2002 Order construing the terms in the patent. There remain additional Gemstar and Scientific-Atlanta patents at issue in cases before the Atlanta court.

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In addition, during this same time period, some of Gemstar's accounting methodologies were called into question. In early 2002, it was revealed that Scientific-Atlanta has stopped paying licencing fees in 1999, yet Gemstar was still counting the licensing fees as part of their revenue stream. Thereby inflating their profit figures.

http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/1002891

"Investors raced to the exits on Gemstar Tuesday after two Wall Street analysts raised questions about Gemstar's accounting methods in reporting revenues as cash. Gemstar disclosed in its annual report that it didn't actually receive $108 million that it booked during 2001 related to licensing fees it expects from set-top box maker Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.(Quote, Chart)

The fees are tied up in a patent infringement case the Pasadena, Calif.-based Gemstar brought against Scientific and other companies over its interactive programming guide (IPG) software licenses. Gemstar claims that Scientific continued to ship the boxes after it license for the guides expired in 1999."

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After the first round of court decisions in Scientific-Atlanta's and Pioneer's favor, Gemstar started to slide.


http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/1371211

June 25, 2002
Gemstar Patent Woes Signal Shift in iTV Tech
By Erin Joyce
As Interactive programming guide maker Gemstar TV-Guide International (Quote, Chart), struggles to regroup after it lost a patent infringement claim regarding its guides, the waves from the decision are sloshing throughout the industry.
Seemingly overnight, analysts say, the ruling has shifted thinking among iTV companies about which IPG patents they should be paying Gemstar for and which might be falling behind in the innovation race.

On Friday, a U.S. International Trade Commission ruling said Gemstar's competitors did not engage in unfair trade practices regarding the use of Gemstar's patented interactive programming guides used in set-top boxes they import and sell across the television industry. While the ruling upheld the patents, it also held that Gemstar's patents regarding the IPG's were not infringed upon.

Gemstar's shares dropped to new lows on the news, and were still sliding Tuesday below the $5 mark.

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/ent...ion/3535645.htm

Posted on Mon, Jun. 24, 2002

Gemstar falls 39% after losing patent-dispute ruling By Adam Steinhauer

PASADENA - Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. shares fell 39 percent after the maker of on-screen television program guides lost a patent dispute that might force it to write off $114 million in expected fees.

An administrative law judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled Friday that TV set-top box makers Scientific-Atlanta Inc., Pioneer Corp. and Sanmina-SCI Corp. and satellite broadcaster EchoStar Communications Corp. may continue importing the devices that Gemstar claimed were violating its patents.


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Then things got worse for Gemstar.

http://www.abc.net.au/am/s649149.htm

AM Archive - Thursday, 15 August , 2002 00:00:00
Reporter: Rafael Epstein
LINDA MOTTRAM: Australia's biggest ever corporate loss just got bigger. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has registered a new Australian benchmark loss of 12-billion dollars, largely due to its failed investment in the programme guide company, Gemstar.

In May, Mr Murdoch said the first write-down of seven-point-seven billion dollars on Gemstar was the worst of the damage. Now, the figure has gone up by more than three billion dollars.

Rupert Murdoch though is optimistic about the outlook for his company and says that moral leadership, not more regulation is the way to restore business confidence.

Rafael Epstein reports.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Gemstar is part of the wreckage left over from Rupert Murdoch's failed or at least unrealised ambition for a global pay TV company.

RUPERT MURDOCH: We have had the two black eyes undoubtedly of Kirch and Gemstar.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Gemstar's major assets are U.S. patents. They patent technology that allows cable and satellite TV operators to put program listings on a screen, to help viewers choose what to watch and perhaps record out of hundreds of pay TV channels.

But this year Gemstar's been hit by its own accounting scandals, slow progress in rolling out the programming guides and a June court ruling that knocked the exclusivity out of some of Gemstar's patented technology.

RUPERT MURDOCH: It's not quite as dramatic as it appears on the surface. You know it's a paper thing, it's an unfortunate thing but one which we feel that we can re-build very well.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The people who check that company out for you, perhaps looking at what technology, what patents they had and due diligence, would they be punished in any way with what happened with Gemstar?

RUPERT MURDOCH: We're happy with the patents.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Despite the court ruling?

RUPERT MURDOCH: Yes, the court ruling is not a final one. It will be appealed in at least one stage if not two stages and we're very confident that we will come out on top on that.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: It's a dramatic decline from the decadent days of the tech boom. In March 2000 NewsCorp shares in Australia were 27 dollars fifty; at the start of this year they were nearly 16 dollars, they closed yesterday at just 9.80 – a slight bounce up from a recent four-year low.

Last financial quarter, Mr Murdoch talked up Gemstar's prospects. This time he referred all questions to that company's management.

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All of this trouble eventually led to Gemstar getting rid of it's founder and the company refocusing it's efforts away from Patent enforcement and back into the technology side of things.

At present the founder of Gemstar is apparently under investigation of the SEC and the main players from Gemstar have seemed to move on to become the entity we now know as Acacia.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030623/244/e30uo.html

Monday June 23, 01:26 PM

This Isn't the Show Henry Yuen Expected
At his peak, Henry Yuen was a enigmatic powerbroker. A one-time mathematics professor, he once ran Gemstar TVGuide, operating out of a nondescript office in Pasadena, Calif. Thanks to a raft of patents for how information could be put on a TV screen, his out-of-the-way office was nonetheless a must-stop for any company interested in TV's fast-blossoming world of digital programming. Yuen's bowl-cut hairstyle and owlish glasses only enhanced his image.

He struck deals to provide an on-screen program guide -- and to collect royalties -- from major cable players like AT&T (T) and consumer-electronic companies like Sony (SNE) and Zenith. That made Gemstar (GMST) a hot-growth stock as the New Millennium dawned, and it lured investors like Rupert Murdoch, who in 2000 merged his TV Guide empire with Gemstar.

Now, the Securities & Exchange Commission is alleging that Yuen may have also been cooking the books -- a charge his lawyer vehemently denies. On June 19, the SEC filed suit in federal court against Yuen and Elsie Leung, Gemstar's former chief financial officer, charging them with a "widespread and complex scheme to inflate Gemstar's licensing and advertising revenues."

"FRAGILE AND ARBITRARY"? Among the deals the SEC alleged to be improper: Gemstar recorded as revenue $113.5 million in licensing fees from set-top-box maker Scientific Atlanta (SFA) that the SEC says Gemstar never received. The SEC also alleged that Gemstar recorded as revenue $20 million for advertising even though the funds had not been paid and were a pledge of advertising support that Gemstar had made when it bought online service Fantasy Sports in June, 2001.

In all, the SEC charges, the two execs overstated Gemstar's revenues by $223 million, helping Yuen and Leung "reap millions of dollars in financial gains from their fraudulent scheme," according to the SEC suit.

Stanley Arkin, the lawyer who represents Yuen and Leung, strongly denounced the SEC allegations in a statement, calling them "as unfair as they are fragile and arbitrary." Arkin added that Yuen and Leung "relied appropriately on the counsel of a team of experienced auditors and attorneys."

MURDOCH'S MAN. The suit caps a tumultuous year for Yuen, who Gemstar says it terminated in April, 2003, "for cause." At the time, Yuen was nonexecutive chairman, after having been forced from the top job by News Corp. (NWS), which owns a 43% stake in Gemstar. In October, 2002, Murdoch had installed a former News Corp. executive, Jeff Shell, as CEO, relegating Yuen to his nonexecutive chairman role.

At the time of Yuen's dismissal, he had resisted an SEC subpoena to provide information about Gemstar's accounting practices. Gemstar says it sent a letter to the SEC's chairman in March "expressing the company's expectation of cooperation." Yuen did not respond to the subpoena on Arkin's suggestion, his lawyer told BusinessWeek Online, because "I didn't think he could get a fair shake from the SEC."

Now, Arkin says in his statement, Yuen and Lueng "look forward to airing these and other facts and circumstances in a fair forum and are confident that the insubstantiality of the SEC claims will be shown." Among those claims is the SEC'S allegation that Gemstar recorded revenue for its electronic program guide "under expired, disputed, or nonexistent agreements."

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So, the moral of this story is that if you want to know how to win against a team.... Look at how other teams have won before you... The team may have changed it's name, but they are apparently (IMHO) playing out of the same playbook.



link references that I looked at (in no particular order)


http://www.abc.net.au/am/s649149.htm
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030623/244/e30uo.html
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflas...2000124_470.htm
http://www.verticaltalents.com/forum2/Care...1&threadID=1209
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:0GS10...&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/m...?msgid=19206505
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/m...?msgid=16855508
http://www.acaciatechnologies.com/aboutus_mgmt.htm
http://www.acaciatechnologies.com/2003ACTG...files/frame.htm
http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/1369951
http://www.usitc.gov/er/nl2002/set_top_boxes_id.pdf
http://www.rca.com/content/viewdetail/1,28...5-CI255,00.html?
http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2003/10/10/...rtr1106440.html
http://www.forbes.com/business/newswire/20...43.html##Static
http://www.sciatl.com/news/02Nov04-1.htm
http://www.sciatl.com/news/03Jul02-1.htm
http://www.sciatl.com/news/03Jul21-2.htm
http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/1002891
http://www.cedmagazine.com/cedailydirect/0...ily030123.htm#6
http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/1371211
http://www.forbes.com/personalfinance/reti...rtr1004864.html
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/ent...ion/3535645.htm
http://legacy.pioneerelectronics.com/Pione...40,2705,00.html
http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/.../aug/aug175.htm
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories...26/daily35.html
http://www.infoart.kharkiv.com/it/news/src...rc/20000074.htm
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1024078898316
http://www.jagnotes.com/archive_jagnotes_b...-02&startrow=71


Hope this helps

[Trev]

Damn Sarettah remind me never to get on the wrong side of you...


Are you ex C.I.A or F.B.I maybe...


I know... Secret Service!


Good digging

[sarettah]

Originally posted by Trev@Oct 24 2003, 11:21 AM
Damn Sarettah remind me never to get on the wrong side of you...


Are you ex C.I.A or F.B.I maybe...


I know... Secret Service!


Good digging

lololol.............

well thanx for the comp Trev, but I just get curious sometimes and there is so much cool stuff to find on the net

[Trev]

Well if you ever get 'curious' about me just ask


I too afraid of what you'll out about me find in cyberspace

[Vick]

A hugh thanks!!!!! and

[Bishop]

Great post Sarettah.. that is a serious read but good information.