The following is excerpted from a February 2, 2010 article by Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor:

An intense look around any industry is likely to turn up companies that seem to operate on a different level. For the technology sector, that company is Acacia Research.

According to a recent Business Week report, this company has filed at least 337 patent-related lawsuits in the 18 years since its inception.

Just what does the company make? Nothing.

Acacia’s business plan consists of acquiring patents from inventors and seeking fees from companies that it claims infringe on those patents. The company has been quite successful in its pursuits, anticipating $68.8 million in sales this year, up from $34.8 million in 2006.

The company licenses technologies it does not design or distribute and is classified as a nonpracticing entity. A number of tech companies refer to Acacia as a somewhat less friendly term: patent trolls.

Nice timing, Acacia Research Corporation. The mother of all patent trolls patent acquisition, development and licensing company, which was profiled in depth by BusinessWeek just two days ago, this morning announced that it has been awarded a total of $12.4 million in a patent infringement case against Yahoo.