From Business Week:
How Acacia Polices Patents
Tiny Acacia Research-Technologies (ACTG) teams up with small tech outfits and takes a license on their patented technologies. Then Acacia goes after companies it believes have infringed those patents. Several titans--Apple (AAPL), Verizon (VZ), and Siemens (SI)—had Acacia come after them, and they wound up paying fees. In Apple's case, Acacia issued it two tech licenses, and Verizon Wireless took a license on a process that synchronizes addresses between wireless network devices, says Acacia Chairman Paul Ryan.
"Acacia [a client] is in the early stages of monetizing its patent assets," notes Bennett Notman of investment firm Davenport, which owns shares. He rates the stock, now at 4.69, a strong buy, with a 12-month target of 15. He sees profits of 20 cents a share in 2008 and 50 cents in 2009, vs. 14 cents in 2007. Researcher ValuEngine agrees Acacia is undervalued and should be trading at 11.39.
Unless otherwise noted, neither the sources cited in Inside Wall Street nor their firms hold positions in the stocks under discussion. Similarly, they have no investment banking or other financial relationships with them.
Marcial writes the Inside Wall Street column for BusinessWeek.
—Gene Marcial
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