I have been out of most the day doing stuff with the family, but have noted all of your comments on the Quanta case. Interesting stuff, as I had not really been closely following that case over the last few months and I have not read many of the posts here on that subject.
Having now read a bit of the linked and/or quoted passages from your posts, it seems there is the expected dispute among legal sources as to how the various Justices are viewing the issues and/or even as to what issues are the most important. It appears to me that, as to the outcome of the case, this is like those discussions people had here on the board some time ago about the validity of our patents --- just as we could show the patents to 1000 EEs and get different opinions, we can discuss the Quanta case with 1000 lawyers and many will differ in their thinking. Therefore, for guys like our new member, "Mike", to continue harping on worst-case scenarios right now seems a bit overboard --- as several of the writers of the articles you posted have said, and as should be obvious, we will just need to wait for the Court's ruling.
I read with interest Cherry and Ease's comments about the contract aspect of the Quanta case, and that caused me to think about TPL's involvement as an amicus contributor as possibly being related to the recent settlement with the J3. In other words, if I was TPL and was keenly aware of the issues in the Quanta case to the extent that I was going to be allowed to submit an amicus brief, I would know that the possible "contractual solution" was going to be an issue before the Supreme Court --- I wouldn't know how the Court would ultimately rule on its applicability, but I would know that, if such solutions are indeed upheld, they would be favorable to my position when negotiating licenses in the interim. With this knowledge, I would certainly do my best to try to include contractual solutions in any licensing deals that I would presently be negotiating.
Althought it is speculative to some extent, I would certainly think it is a reasonable deduction that TPL did its best to include such solutions in the J3 settlement/licensing deals, and to tailor them to the arguments being made in the Supreme Court. It always seemed to me that our settlement with the J3 took an unusually long amount of time after the stay order was granted, and as such, combined with the above, I must wonder if there wasn't a great deal of discussion about these "contractual solution" issues that caused some of the delay. I apologize if this was obvious to the four of you, or if someone else has already addressed what I have said above, but it just "hit home" with me today after I read your posts.
As always, of course, we shall see. Thanks for your discussion of these issues.
OT to Ease: Pats were great today. Unless the "forces of he universe" just don't want to see them have a perfect season, they are going to be awesome in the Super Bowl.
