Filed in three different courts in Arizona, Minnesota and Ohio, the lawsuits target Armstrong Group, Arvig Communication Systems, Block Communications, Inc., CableAmerica Corporation, Cable One, Inc., Cable System Services, Inc., Cannon Valley Communications, Inc., East Cleveland Cable TV and Communications, among others.
The complaints allege that certain types of programming and activities used by the 19 defendants, including pay-per-view, video-on-demand and digital ad insertion, are infringing on one or more of Acacia's five U.S. DMT patents.
In June, Acacia filed a lawsuit against six other cable companies in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, among them Comcast Corp., Charter Communications Inc., The DirectTV Group Inc. and Echostar Communications Corp. That lawsuit is still outstanding. However, of the original defendants, three of the smaller companies have settled, including Central Valley Cable TV, Seren Innovations, Inc. and Boulder Ridge Cable TV.
Acacia also announced today that it added Middletown, N.Y.-based Mediacom LLC to its Northern California litigation. Mediacom is the eighth largest cable company in the U.S. and maintains a subscriber base of 1.5 million subscribers.
Acacia executives Paul Ryan, Chip Harris and Robert Berman are scheduled to appear at the Roth Capital Partners New York Conference on Sept. 15 to drum up more interest among financial brokers in its DMT licensing program. Acacia representatives are also slated to discuss the company's licensing strategy for its Internet Access Redirection, a new licensing option for companies looking to control the web interfaces for both Wi-Fi and hotel high-speed access.
