Spurious Patent Follies of 2003

Oh, look. "Southern Michigan University" is among the universities targeted by Acacia Research Corporation, which, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Volume 50, Issue 8, Page A38,

...holds 5 U.S. patents and 17 international patents in digital-media-transmission technology. The patents cover not technological details but concepts like transmitting video on demand from servers to users' machines.

Acacia has sent patent-infringement letters to an unknown number of colleges across the country, offering to overlook past infringement in exchange for the institution's signing on to "a special royalty rate of 2 percent of gross revenue from each online course that includes digital audio and/or video content."

Must remember: Books Are Bad. Books Are Bad. Everything's On The Internet....