Patent Firm Acacia Loses Case Against Microsoft; More To Come?

It looks like Acacia, who recent filed a suit against Red Hat and Novell, just lost its first court battle. From a paidContent article:

The notorious patent holding company Acacia Research, which first came to light in the digital media industry for claiming broad patents in the streaming media field, has lost first of its many lawsuits to reach as far as a jury trial. In a federal court in Lufkin, Texas, the jury found that Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) did not infringe on an Acacia patent related to technology used to quickly power up computer, reports Marketwatch. Filed in 2006, the lawsuit sought as much as $900 million in damages from Microsoft, based on sales of its Windows XP OS. The news sent Acacia’s shares down nearly 35 percent in late Nasdaq trading.

As the story says, Acacia has distinguished itself as a particularly aggressive patent holding company, and has embraced the public spotlight that comes alongside suing high-profile companies. Earlier in the week, it announced a patent settlement with AT&T.

Let’s hope this is the first of the many cases they are trolling that end up with a loss. With the stock already plunging 35% on this one loss, a couple losses strung in a row could put significant pressure on the company to get a new revenue model. If patent trolls didn’t make money there would be significantly fewer of them.

–jeremy