At that point, the company had just tried its first infringement case in front of a jury, winding up on the wrong end of a rare defense win as a panel of East Texas citizens invalidated the patent Acacia had asserted. (In 2007, defense wins in East Texas were still a rare occurrence.)
This week, though, Acacia is flying high, releasing new financial-performance figures that suggest the company isn’t headed for the dustbin of history anytime soon. After not having been profitable since it went public in 2002, Acacia crossed that barrier earlier this year. Now, its just-published results for the third quarter of 2010 prove two things—first, pure patent enforcement can be a moneymaking business for investors as well as for lawyers, and second, that business can scale up into something big.
