Quote:
Originally posted by Marc De@Oct 6 2003, 08:06 PM
Ken - thanks for clarifying that statement.
Just so everyone is clear, you can NOT double dip in patent lawsuits. You can't collect damages from infridgers and conducer(s). You may only collect ONE set of damages (from any of the parties), you don't get paid more than once for reasonable fees. Therefore, there should have been virtually NO negotiations on your part to get Acacia to indemnify YOUR affiliates for the traffic they send to Vivid / Hustler since you are now in compliance with their patent (in the form of a license). If there is no patent infridgement (since you have a license) then obviously there is no conducing of infridgement. This really isn't big news. If I signed a settlement all my webmasters would be protected as well since there would no patent infridgement since I am now a licensed party.
Whenever a bully arises someone must confront them and beat them down. ARS is committed to invalidating this patent. Some can argue the best business decision is to settle (it could obviously be cheaper) but I choose not to let this be a precedent for anyone else to beckon my door or this industries door again.
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Marc,
While what you said makes perfect sense, I don't think that is always 100% true. I'm going to get clarification on this issue because I know it was not in the original agreement. I personally asked for it to be added and there was a lot of back and fourth about it. I'm not an attorney, so you very well could be right.
Either way, it's really a non-issue I suppose. Our intention was not and is not to "scare" affiliates into using our programs. Hopefully they will use them for other reasons!
10-07-2003
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