Acacia Suffers Trial Defeat in Rocket Docket

By Andrew Longstreth

December 15, 2009

Even though it's a fairly young company, Acacia Technologies has been able to persuade an impressive group of companies to fork over licensing fees for its patents. But fees won't be forthcoming anytime soon from a group of wireless carriers and a data card manufacturer that Acacia sued over a patent for network data cards. On Monday afternoon, a jury in the Eastern District of Virginia returned a verdict for the defendants, finding no infringement and the patent invalid, according to two lawyers for the defendants.

The patent at issue covered network cards that are inserted into laptops for broadband Internet access. Acacia filed its suit in January against five wireless carriers for a portion of the revenue they make from customer service fees. According to Brian Riopelle of McGuireWoods, counsel to Verizon Wireless and Alltel Wireless, Acacia originally sought nearly $175 million, but by the time the case got to the jury, Acacia's claims had been whittled down to $85 million.

In the end, the jury decided to give them nothing. Mike Bettinger of K&L Gates, who represented network card manufacturer Novatel Wireless at trial, told us the case was a stretch from the begining. "They had no story," said Bettinger. "They were trying to play gotcha games."

Acacia was represented by Adam Floyd of Floyd & Buss, an Austin IP boutique started by former Vinson & Elkins attorneys. We left phone and e-mail messages with Floyd but didn't hear back.

Bettinger told us that he had a sense that Floyd & Buss was hoping to make a splash with this case. "They swung for the fences on this one," said Bettinger.

Among the other attorneys on the defense side were Kevin Anderson of Wiley Rein (Verizon and Alltel); Ramsey Al-Salam of Perkins Coie (T-Mobile); Ronald Lopez and Edward McCormack of Nixon Peabody (Sprint); and Victor Felix and Anthony Dain of Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch (US Cellular).