Acacia Research

Acacia Research Corporation, founded in 1993, is an American company based in Irvine, California. Acacia partners with patent owners such as inventors and universities to license patents that are infringed. Roughly, 95% of the company's business involves licensing infringed patents on behalf of patent owners to some of the world's largest corporations through patent litigation.[3][4][5][6][7]

Acacia Research Corporation
Public
Traded asNASDAQ: ACTG
IndustryPatent Licensing & Monetization
Founded1993[1]
FounderPaul Ryan
HeadquartersIrvine, CA,
Irvine, California
,
USA
Key people
Clifford Press, CEO
Alfred V. Tobia, Jr., CIO [1]
Revenue
  • US$23.59 million (2017)[2]
  • US$22.18 million (2017)[2]
SubsidiariesAcacia Research Group LLC
Websiteacaciaresearch.com

Acacia creates a subsidiary company that acts as a special purpose entity for each set of patents that it enforces. The patent owner assigns the infringed patents to the subsidiary and the subsidiary then licenses the patents to companies who are infringing. Acacia and the patent owner split any revenues generated from licensing the patents on a 50/50 basis.[8][9][5].

Since the year 2000, Acacia has generated $1.4 Billion in revenue from licensing patents and has paid out over $731 Million to inventors and other patent owners.[10][11] The company has formed 233 known subsidiaries and has litigated 1,412 cases, four of which were not through a subsidiary.[12].

Controversies

Acacia has been referred to as a non-practicing entity because the company derives revenue from licenses and lawsuits rather than from building products.[13][14]

gollark: DVDs are digital and thus exactly copyable however.
gollark: That is a... somewhat bizarre conclusion to draw from that.
gollark: Universities do seem to mention "transferable skills" a lot, but I don't know how significant those actually are.
gollark: Probably, yes. I have a friend who likes programming language theory a lot but doesn't really expect to be able to get work in that (eventually).
gollark: The theoretical stuff isn't necessarily worse depending on what you want to do.

References
  1. Acacia Research Corporation Form 10-K, received February 26, 2010,
  2. "Acacia Research Corporation . 2017 Annual Report Form (10-K)". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. December 2018. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
  3. Los Angeles Times
  4. USPTO Assignment Database - Acacia Patent Acquisition Corp
  5. USPTO Assignment Database - Acacia Research Group
  6. Acacia Technologies - Why work with Acacia?
  7. "Acacia Research Corporation 10-K Annual Report". www.sec.gov.
  8. Los Angeles Times
  9. Acacia Technologies - Why work with Acacia?
  10. Acacia Research: Overview
  11. SEC.gov Acacia Research 2018 10-Q
  12. RPX Corporation - Acacia Research
  13. "The Troll Toll How "patent assertion entities" stifle innovation. (It's even worse than you think.)". 2012-04-09. Retrieved 2013-12-20.
  14. "Newegg Obtains First Federal Circuit Fee Shifting Decision Based on Recent Supreme Court Precedent". Newegg Inc. Retrieved 22 May 2014.
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