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If Samsung are looking to try to delay Markman/trial then it is entirely possible that the presiding judge may decline any motion they make to delay the procedures (Cf. Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254 (1936) (“The Power to stay proceedings is incidental to the power inherent in every court to control the disposition of the causes on its docket with economy of time and effort for itself, for counsel, and for litigants.”) due to the potential risk of prejudice to trial and waste of judicial resources caused by the simultaneous litigation.If granted an IPR is limited to only adding a maximum of 12 months to proceedings (up to 18 in exceptional cases).Anyone who wants to go down the IPR route is advised to initiate the process at the earliest stage possible in order to have any chance of success.I've had a very long day so I may be getting the completely wrong end of the stick but the clearest example of an apparently typical process I could find was located at:
https://patentlaw.jmbm.com/2013/06/motion-to-stay-pending-inter-p-1.html if anybody wants to take a look.
In addition,Samsung state they use the Benin process to creat gold particle agglomerations of approximately 101 atoms in size.Can you guess how large nanoco's molecular clusters arestated as being? and that this is "precisely the type of amorphous impure nanoparticle that the ’365 patent distinguishes from “molecular cluster compounds” Ie;Samsung uses agglomerations instead of clusters and that their agglomerations contain different metals so said agglomerations cannot be defined as clusters due to their constituent elements. In my view this is similar to saying a victoria sponge cannot be considered to be a cake as chocolate cake contains cocoa and the sponge does not.I shall leave this now as I'm getting into baking and thus well outside of my knowledge base.
One,major,pillar of Samsung's defence is the approach to creating quantum dots.Samsung say that their method uses a "metal nanoparticle as catalyst for rod growth" which they state isn't a molecular cluster compound.Nanoco's method uses zinc and other transition metals and terms them a molecular cluster compound. From the chemistry I remember from school transition metals as a group can be used as catalysts in many inorganic reactions so Samsung are saying that nanoco should have named each and every metal as a cluster compound rather than the ones they did name as examples of said transition metals.
I would like to point out that their own creation method states pretty much exactly this as well.
Also,Samsung state that in the Nanoco are "describing molecular cluster compound to be of “sufficiently well-defined chemical structure” such that “the molecular clusters are identical to one another in the same way that one H2O
molecule is identical to another H2O molecule" and they then go on to"...are not well-defined, and certainly not identical in the way an H2O molecule is identical to another H2O molecule...." before going on to,in my view,a potentially major error in their case in which they state that their submission "...is merely a “suggested formula"" In short-Samsung could appear to have made claims without any research to back said claims up and are merely using conjecture to justify them.
I would like to point out that my knowledge of this class of chemistry isn't at research chemist level like these guys and that I haven't had time to go through each page of Samsungs submissions and coldly assess their claims.However, the parts I have looked at look like a shaky and cobbled together response composed of maybe/could possibly/potentially/"we think that this could happen" arguments. Samsung's response to Nanoco serves to provide bones for a legal team to pick over in order to spin events out and provide time for negotiations to be prolonged to such a point that Nanoco give in to Samsung's settlement offer.
Yes I'm biased too,but bias does not impact fact.
Samsung already threatening to take their case to the next judicial level weakens their case in my view.We could take the view that they know the result of Markman and the trial already and are merely using the promise of prolonging proceedings to give them more breathing room in any negotiations which are ongoing behind the scenes. If this was to be true we would then be able to extrapolate out the possibility that Nanoco are possibly gaining the upper hand in the ongoing negotiations and that our Korean friends are starting to envision significant/worrying sums having to be paid out.
If they were confident in their position as is then disputing the verdict from the trial before it is even delivered would not be happening.I may be being over optimistic but I see this as an admission of weakness and a sign of possibly increasing worry from Samsung.
I was under the impression that the Markman hearing interprets the terms used in the patents. As Samsung's defence is based on the molecular cluster compound definition (as well as a few other terms) I would assume the Markman hearing is quite a big deal. It will essentially clarify terminology,which is at the heart of Samsung's defence and nanoco's complaint.
Hadn't considered that,fingers crossed we've got some extra pricing in to come
BC,I'd love that to be the actual reason behind events but wouldn't the price increase be a more gradual rise rather than the sudden two quite sudden jumps we have seen since January?
I used x25 purely for the fact it was a large multiple. No science behind it and I couldn't find any information to back up a hard figure. Much prefer your numbers though.
Current patent litigation costs are between $2.3 and $4m dollars according to some sources,(https://apnews.com/press-release/news-direct-corporation/a5dd5a7d415e7bae6878c87656e90112#:~:text=The%20American%20Intellectual%20Property%20Lawyer's,or%20more%20is%20at%20risk source dated 10/7/20) a multiple of x25 would be $100m if this source is representative. I'd be happy with losing that from a decent award. Obviously just possible ball park figures though.
A ball park figure is 30% of damages for third party funder remuneration in US courts (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://members.irglobal.com/file/cc229e7f2f9d7906777b251bd3e0d972.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjm4_GktKvvAhUPLBoKHc9OC4cQFjADegQIDxAC&usg=AOvVaw0oUxteWQrfhTQOxlg7JG6F)
One question this brings up is does the funder think the damages will be paltry so the multiple of their costs will be more than 30% of a settlement/damages or do they see the case being so labour intensive/long that a multiple of costs would exceed 30%?
Another way of looking at it is whether funders were competing to fund the case as it was so open and close that they saw it as easy money and the guys willing to accept the least for a guaranteed amount of income got the gig. In short was the ball in nano's court due to the strength of their case.
From RNS of 13/7/20 "...In return, the Funder can expect to receive a multiple of their invested capital in the event of a settlement or judgement in favour of Nanoco..." Fingers crossed that multiple isn't an eye watering one.
I don't remember exactly but I think I read somewhere that the funder had made an agreement to accept a multiple of their investment rather than a % of compensation awarded.
Sorry,meant for another board. Not this one.
I was wondering when you would pop up.
Thats a possibility as well but with that much confidence I would expect them to have given some compelling reasons to back it up.
Good find there! Reading between the lines,it looks like Samsung have made a decision regarding how things are going to go here,they wouldn't throw the amount of cash they have on building factories and putting business infrastructure in place if they were unsure of their ability to use quantum dots in the future.It would be unlikely that they would do this if they were worried about a potential injunction being put into place in the near future or nano being unlikely to give them a license to use the dots. Things are looking up.
It looks like the patents were concerned with touchscreen sensitivity,I think maybe pressure sensitivity and duration of said pressure so maybe not as important as visual display to the products.
Personally I think I'd prefer to see an RNS for a buy out offer,no having to judge when best to sell etc. It might even make sense for Samsung in that they know that they are going to have to settle for $X,why not pay $X+500m and own the IP outright so they can license it out to at least recoup some of their financial losses.
You've previously said you are investing in the technology. You have now said that you don't think nano's case is likely to be resolved in the company's favour nor in a relatively short timeframe.
Samsung are currently using the technology and,in your opinion,don't have any legal worries about it. Without wanting to sound rude why haven't you invested there instead? Nobody invests their hard earned cash just to lose it as that would be as foolish as spending their time on an internet chat board highlighting the fact that they are doing just this to strangers.
www.vanguardngr.com/2021/01/samsung-chief-lee-jae-yong-jailed-over-corruption-scandal/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwi1jrPd9JTvAhXzaRUIHWq4DNUQFjAAegQIBBAD&usg=AOvVaw1pRIqA16lkNOa0jKXhwWLM&cf=1
From January 2021.