Member Info for Maxi19

As I said previously nanostory, the board have said they anticipate commercial orders this year. Everyone knows those orders will come from STMicro. STMicro would not allow the board to make such statements if they were untrue.

If you think orders are actually not anticipated this year, that would require the board to be incredibly deceptive and also incredibly reckless/stupid. My opinion is that the board handled the comms over the litigation terribly, but it is far more reasonable to think they are telling the truth about commercial orders.

Highly unlikely that Apple have already started production if they're going to sit on a shelf for 6 months.

As for visibility of orders, I suspect that Nanoco *do* have visibility, which is why in Feb and March they said they *anticipate* orders this year, and also why they hired extra staff and bought materials for production. They've said previously that they wouldn't release an RNS once they had visibility, only when they get the first commercial order.

I'm not a patent lawyer but that is what I understand the PTAB did and does - their whole purpose is to take care of the validity arguments so that the trial is about infringement and damages.

There were some court documents suggesting Samsung were going to present alternative validity arguments at the trial, but BT was pretty dismissive of those in the October webcast and suggested Samsung probably wouldn't run them.

Not sure that is correct. The PTAB did rule on the main arguments for validity. Samsung appealed but then dropped the appeal as part of the settlement. What I think this means (although not 100% sure) is that other infringing parties cannot do a rerun of the PTAB as the PTAB decision is binding - in other words that hurdle is already cleared for Nanoco in any future litigation.

As much as it would be cool to have sensors in the headset, I don't see how previous predictions about production fits with Nanoco's timeline.

The headset was slated for production in 2021 and then in 2022. Whereas for the past couple of years Nanoco has been predicting commercial production in 2023. Perhaps the design of the headset has changed to include our sensors.

Sorry intrusive, can you elaborate on that? Why did Samsung want to invalidate it? Surely they just wanted to use it for as little money as possible. The patents expire by end of 2028 anyway so not far away relatively speaking.

It's quite possible that our materials will end up in Samsung phones, either via STMicro or Sony (the end customer of the Asian customer).

Apple and Samsung have been bitter enemies for forever, but they still do business with each other.

Never heard of Van Der Waals heterostructures, but sounds like something up my street.

Can you explain how this could affect Nanoco in layman's terms?!

ArkMan, I think Jonathan Steikel used the word "specifically" in the presentation he gave in April this year. Specifically doesn't mean exclusively of course and yes I agree that there are many potential uses.

Thanks Nanonano.

A question from me: Jonathan Steikel has said that the SWIR sensor was designed specifically for a mobile phone - presumably that doesn't mean it can't be used in other devices though?

I would also say to Hamoodi, if he really is Nanostory, that the best way to recoup your investment is if we get commercial orders. Removing the board won't really affect that but it will introduce instability. Changing strategy by setting up some kind of licensing/patent troll business may well be profitable but not in the near term. If we do get a decent sized commercial order then the institutional investment should start coming in (BT said it has been waiting for the resolution of the litigation and the first commerical order ) and there's a very good chance the share price will exceed your entry price, perhaps by multiples. You can then chalk up what happened with the litigation as experience and use it to become a better investor.

There are many factors to consider in a litigation settlement which have nothing to do with the merits of the case.

If Nanoco's board strongly believe they have the opportunity to capture the market in QD sensing materials over the next 5 years, which could lead to hundreds of millions per year of revenue, then it would be reasonable to sacrifice the opportunity of additional damages in return for (i) validating IP (ii) having capital to invest in the business e.g. hiring the best staff and building more production capacity, and (iii) being able to focus purely in the organic business.

I've been critical of the board over the litigation but let's see what the next year or so brings.

A further point on this: every new iPhone has an EVT (Engineering and Validation Test) that runs from Feb/March to June/July). Once it's finished mass production starts.

In the RNS on 28 March it said "Final validation underway for commercial production materials...". That is very much consistent with the new iphone EVT, as is the fact that final validation is due to end in FY23 i.e. by the end of July.

Finally, BT has said that the final validation is about validating STMicro's place in the supply chain - in other words, it's about satisfying the requirements of a customer of ST Micro.

It's possible that the SWIR sensor will be used in the VR device.

BT said it wasn't expected that it was going to be validated for production as early as FY23, and many pundits didn't expect the headset to be released this year.

As for the NIR material, I still think that could be used in an iphone model. BT's choice of periods to describe validation and production was strange - during FY23 for the validation and by the end of CY23 for orders. Obviously those periods overlap so it allows for the possibility of a production order in June. It appears that end of June/early July is when Apple starts putting in orders to suppliers for components so if there's no news by end of July we'll know that it won't be in an iphone this year.

Nanostory and NGR, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of your predictions.

$150m pre-trial may have been a fair outcome BUT the board are responsible for raising/not dampening enough shareholders' expectations. Plus the phone call on the eve of trial with LOAM and LOAM then dumping a massive amount of stock before 9 Jan RNS looks really really bad, even if there is an innocent explanation.

Try and find some common ground.

As much as I recommend being sceptical about communications from the board following the litigation, I don't think it's reasonable to assume their statement about anticipating orders by end of CY23 is misleading.

The reason being is that everyone knows ST Micro is the customer, and if they have told Nanoco the opposite i.e. expect orders in CY24 or later, then you have an obvious case of Nanoco misleading investors. You could question whether ST Micro would notice or care - I think they definitely would notice and care. This is a new product for them and if their own shareholders were expecting commercialisation in CY23 based on Nanoco's misleading statements you can be sure that ST Micro would be furious.

If the comms on the litigation had been better the SP would probably be double, even triple where it is now. The current position is purely down to poor expectations management.

I don't want to sound like I'm defending what happened in the litigation, but if Samsung were prepared to pay $150m because of two patents they or someone else would probably pay £20m to buy them outright. Not to mention the fixed assets of the business.

I think it's brave to sell shares as undervalued as these. If the company put itself up for sale after receiving the second tranche you'd get at least a 30-40% uplift to current SP. Runcorn and the IP do have some value.

And if we do actually get a commercial order, particularly if it's a large one, you're looking at a complete re-rating.