November 23, 2007 7:38 AM PST
Patent troll Acacia gets its first day in court...and loses
I failed to see this last week, but Acacia Research, the patent troll that recently went after Red Hat and Novell, got its first day in court with a Texas jury and lost. Big time. It was seeking $900 million in damages, as paidContent notes, and instead got 35 percent of its stock price chopped.
I weep for Acacia. OK. Maybe not. Looking at this stock chart, I will admit that a smile has played across my face:
(Credit:
Google Finance)
Still, not to be dissuaded by things like truth and right, Acacia has filed another suit against Microsoft and Apple (word processing this time). The trolls you will always have with you.
Matt Asay is chief operating officer at Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux operating system. Prior to Canonical, Matt was general manager of the Americas division and vice president of business development at Alfresco, an open-source applications company. Matt brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
