WARNING:THIS IS TVL RELATED BUT OFF TOPIC.
With due respect to golong,etc.. some of us don't visit the other threads and this is relevant.
Acacia Research Comments on Sharp Price Decline
PASADENA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 30, 1998--Acacia Research Corp. (Nasdaq/NMS:ACRI) Thursday commented on the recent price decline, citing a recently filed complaint against one of the company's majority-owned subsidiaries, Soundview Technologies Inc., challenging its patent as the probable cause of the sharp drop in Acacia Research's stock price.
President Paul R. Ryan stated, "Soundview Technologies has not been provided with any information upon which to evaluate the basis of this complaint, including any evidence to support the complaint's allegations."
Soundview Technologies continues to assert its rights under the patent.
PG Distribution Inc., of Omaha, Neb., filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court, District of Delaware, against Soundview Technologies seeking a declaratory judgment that U.S. Patent No. 4,554,584 (relating to a video and audio blanking system) is invalid.
On April 7, 1998, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a re-examination certificate confirming the approval of all existing and newly added claims of Soundview Technologies' U.S. Patent No. 4,554,584, titled "Video and Audio Blanking System."
The re-examination was requested by Soundview Technologies in August 1996 to confirm the strength of its patent in light of other existing patents. More than 30 new prior art references were introduced and examined during the process, which took more than 18 months for the Patent Office to complete.
As a result, patentability of all original claims as issued was confirmed and 17 new claims more specific to the V-chip implementation were granted.
The patent describes the method for implementing the V-chip system in parallel with the existing closed-captioning circuits already in place in televisions. The Federal Communications Commission recently adopted this method as the technical standard for new televisions that will be required to have V-chip technology.
Soundview Technologies has launched a licensing program for its technology for the approximately 25 million new televisions sold each year as well as V-chip-equipped cable boxes, VCRs and converter boxes for the 200 million existing televisions in the United States.
Acacia Research is a diversified capital-management company with interests in several enterprises -- CombiMatrix Corp. (biochips/drug- discovery technology), Greenwich Information Technologies LLC (video and audio-on-demand technology), Internet Software LLC (Internet software), MerkWerks Corp. (software development), Soundview Technologies Inc. (V-chip technology), Whitewing Labs Inc. (marketer of nutritional supplements) and the company's investment-advisory business (managing four private investment funds).
Regards L.
P.S. Congrats Doc Graham!!!!!! |
