TrollTracker has some new interesting bits about Acacia, the patent troll that attacks Linux (and has roots in Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]).

Reader Anthony Sabatini of New York writes to tell me that the auto-text patent asserted by Acacia subsidiary AutoText in Cleveland might be invalid in light of the Control Data Corp CDC6600 console system developed two decades earlier.

[...]

Finally, IP Innovation and Technology Licensing Corp. -- in other words, ACACIA -- filed a lawsuit in Marshall against Google, accusing Google's search engine and Google Earth of infringing two patents. This is the same Acacia sub that sued Red Hat and Novell over Linux, with the same lawyers - Johnny Ward and Eric Albritton. But these are different patents. The patents asserted against Google are 5,276,785 and 5,675,819, which Acacia got from Xerox. Nice going, Xerox.

You see? So, companies inherit the patents of companies that actually have products and then absorb the bad image on their behalf. They can also do their fights, by proxy. Haven't we all learned that from SCO?

In other patent news, Vonage gets another round of confrontation.

A federal appeals court on Thursday turned down a request by Vonage Holdings to reconsider a lower court verdict that it infringed two patents held by Verizon Communications.

One of the readers found some very interesting bits to add:

One is an example of patent licensing abuse.

Qualcomm Wednesday won one of its many battles with Nokia over patents and related licensing fees

[...].

A cross-licensing agreement expired in April, and Nokia has halted payments to cover its use of Qualcomm's technology for high-speed mobile data

Here is an ultra trivial patent.

A system and method for printing a customized combination newsletter and product label for used in dispensing prescribed pharmaceutical products

The patent system never produced so much innovation.