Microsoft Wins One in the ED of Texas

I used to think that juries in East Texas never met a patent they didn't like. All of that changed last Friday when word of Microsoft's victory over Computer Acceleration Corp. ("CAC") spread across the blogosphere. CAC is a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corp., which is owned by one of the largest patent licensing companies in existence. A recent SEC filing shows that Acacia subsidiaries are involved in 33 pending patent infringement cases for a variety of technologies, including vehicle magnetic brakes, user-activated Internet advertising, digital media transmission and credit card fraud protection.

The patent-in-suit in Microsoft's case, US Pat. No. 5,933,630, entitled "Program Launch Acceleration Using Ram Cache." (patent here in pdf US5933630%5B1%5D.pdf)

Interestingly enough, the inventors are both Washingtonians, Clinton L. Ballard (a registered member of the Suquamish tribe) and Timothy W. Smith, both reportedly residents of Seattle Washington.

The Jury found the claims of the '630 patent invalid. Some commentators on this case are saying the ED of Texas is not as plaintiff-friendly as some think. Mike Smith of McKool Smith reports that the win rate in the ED of Texas for this year is below the national average by almost 2/3 or 67%.