The next focusIR Investor Webinar takes places on 14th May with guest speakers from Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund. Please register here.
@Feeks, Thanks for answering my question but I don't think they were withrawn because they were commercial in confidence documents . Although I haven't paid for the original documents (exhibits/attachments) to the motion I assume the exhibits were attached to the original in limine motion suggestion. So they were available to anyone who paid. Only later did S &N both issue documents saying the exhibits had been redacted. So , if I am right- (and I may not be) any commercially sensitive info would have already been out there. Also from the exhibit A of Nanoco's motion I think we can say that the things redacted/not redacted don't look very commercially sensitive. for example (sample only):
Exhibit I: (REDACTED) Exerts from the Expert Report of Christopher A. Martinez with Respect to Damages, dated June 10, 2021.
Exhibit H (NOT REDACTED) Excerpts from the VirnetX Inc. v. Apple, Inc. Trial Transcript, dated April 10, 2018.
Exhibit I: (REDACTED) Excerpts from Plaintiff Nanoco Technologies Ltd.’s First Set of Interrogatories to Defendants Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc. (Nos. 1-12), dated October 20, 2020
Exhibit J: (REDACTED) Excerpts from Plaintiff Nanoco Technologies Ltd.’s Second Set of Interrogatories to Defendants Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc. (Nos. 13-18), dated November 9, 2020.
I am still at a loss about what is going on with these redactions. Ho humm, it is probably not really important, and I guess I am overthinking the matter.
Sammy88, you may be correct but I'm not fully sure as I think the exhibits were all supporting evidences for Samsung and Nanoco motions in Limine which the parties were asking the judge to agree to, about what should/should not be permissible in the trial proceedings. So it maybe, that whilst Nanoco is still fielding some (but reduced) supporting evidence for the judge to approve its proposed motions in Limine, Samsung seems to have (?) dropped all such supporting edivence for its proposed motions. I could be getting this all wrong. I don't know whether this sort of thing is typical at this stage and if not what is actually going on. So for example Samsung original proposed draft order for the judge to agree to its motions in limine still seems not to have be redacted, but now may possibly not have any supporting evidence.(doesn't need any perhaps?). I admit to being confused on this matter it just all seems strange and I can't believe all this supporting evidence would be redacted without some sort of request or nod from the judge. But WDIK)!
I'm even more confused. Samsung seem to have redacted (deleted?) all its attached exhibits to its recent motion. Nanoco seem to have redacted some of their exhibits attached to their recent motion, but not all. Is this likely to be of their own volition? Or as part of an agreement? Or based on pressure from the judge?
Anyone understand why Samsung seem to have 'redacted in entirity' various exhibits to their recent motions? Or am I just completely misunderstanding the recent docket update? why would they do that? To replace them with something else? To amend them? Anyone with more insight/knowledge than me know what is going on here/
I am heavily invested here so I don't want to appear too negative but although you may be right that NW England is a centre of QD excellence, the UK in general has often in the past invented things that have ended up being commercial exploited by others. We still have no visibility on any real commercialization BY NANOCO of this important technology in NW England or anywhere else, despite them doing all the hard graft. If Nanoco fails against Samsung and we are jilted at the altar again by our European customer where does they leave us? The journey has been very long already with many false dawns. Nanoco really needs at least one major commercialization success soon, preferably more than one. I believe Nanoco can do it, but I suspect that many LTHs (including me) will lose the faith if Nanoco doesn't produce real progress fairly soon. The chances look good this time, but last chance(s) saloon anyone?
My guess is that both sides would probably be willing to settle, but only on their own terms. That doesn't mean much though as the red lines of each company are probably currently incompatible with the red lines of the other. The real question is whether one or both companies are willing to compromise on those 'red lines'. That in turn will depend on how they perceive their risks of going to trial, both their chances of winning/losing and the best and worse case financial implications of each result. This is not a simple calculation for either party and perhaps ,for now at least, the difference between the parties' positions is just too wide to allow a pre-trial settlement. But it could be an interesting six weeks or so before the trial starts and things could change quite suddenly without us having any visibility of what is going on until suddenly an agreement is reached or time runs out and the trial starts.
One of the things I haven't seen discussed much is the likilhood of which of the 'damages models' which might be chosen. To be honest I'm fairly relaxed the jury/court will decide infringement took place (I know - no 100% guarantee here either), I am maybe 50/50 about the jury deciding it was wilful (although personally I think it is fairly obvious, but WDIK) but the area I have most concerns about is the basis on which any damages might be awarded. If I have understood this issue correctly the difference could be several/many muliples in the damages awarded varying for 1-2 hundred million to figures in the infamous/contentious billion(s) range. However I have no idea on what basis the damages model will be chosen. I fear there is a possibilty the jury will 'play safe' on this and will use a low yielding damages model whichwill obviously limit the value to Nanoco/us shareholders considerably . Any thoughts anyone?
@Hawi, I am extremely grateful to you for one of your previous post that set out a lot of the key dates up to and including Jury selection - which I have saved so that I can check the dates from time to time. Unfortunately It didn't go on to show the start of trial date and neither did the link you directed me to in your last post to me. In films etc the trial always seems to start immediately after jury selection but I'm still not sure about that here because earlier there was a lot of talk about the trial possibly starting in October. Sammy88 clearly thinks it is currently still on for September, but S has asked for a delay. So I'm still a little confused. Does anyone know if we have clear visibility on the current position on trial start date? Thanks
Thanks to SteakAnd Ale and Sammy88.
Of course what I didn't say in my post was that it is reasonable to believe that the stastistics that we have provide a low/upper bound to the probabilities now after knowledge of the PTAB results. It is an assumption (but I think a reasonable one) that the PTAB success will (significantly) increase Nanoco's probablity of success at trial. It probably increases the chances of a pre-trial settlement as well but I am less certain about how signicicant this is. One's view of Samsung also plays into what one suspects will happen, It is a question we can debate as to whether S will stick to their usual playbook or whether they will consider the financial risks in this case and the probability of losing at trial are sufficiently high for them to settle pre-trial. We will all have our ideas about this, but none of us can be certain. Time will tell.
On a separate point does anyone know whether the trial is still planned for October as it was at one stage or will it follow /directly after jury selection and occur in mid/late September? Thanks.
* sorry typo: should have read: 'you have reason to believe your case is typical'
Surely statistics are most useful when you don't have specific details of an individual case to predict an outcome but you do have enough knowledge in order to classify your case into the group to which the statistics apply and you have reason to believe your case is atypical. . Bayes' theorem comes into play here as if we have prior knowledge of conditions relating to the case which probably affect the likelihood of the specific result it makes the original general statistic much less relevant. And we may have such knowledge as we know our patents were all upheld at PTAB. So an important question is : Is that knowledge (the PTAB result) relevant to our expectations of a settlement and or the probable result at trial should it go that far? I think (but can't be sure)that it probably is, but I haven't seen any separate statistics that relate to success at trial after such a resounding success at PTAB nor the likelhood of settlement pre-trial after such a resounding success at PTAB . Has anyone else? If we don't have such statitics but believe the PTAM result is significant, which I do, Bayes theorum suggests that general statistics we have about settlement and trial success are NOT that relevant to this case as these statistics are based on a much wider set of cases in which our case is atypical. If anyone has statistics relating to settlement or not, or success at trial or not, AFTER an overwhelming PTAB result, I would love to know what they are. If not, I'm not going to place too much reliance on statistics that are based on a group of cases in which our specific case is, in my view, atypical.
"it’s simply a case of proving infringement."
That is clearly the jury's key task, but I think the jury actually has at least three tasks, all of which we want ideally to go our way: (1) Did Samsung infringe at least one of Nanoco's patents? If yes, then (2) was that infringement wilful? and (3) (I think) what damages model should be used to set compensation? I believe the Judge may actually decide some of the detail after the jury's verdicts on these matters. For example if the jury 's verdict is S wilfully infringed Nanoco's patents, then my understanding is that he (not the jury) will decide whether to apply a multiple to the damages amount up to three times. I think I remembr BT said normally the factor used is actually 1.5 not 3. Happy to be corrected if someone else knows better!
Talking about the jury, do people worry that the full details of the case are too technical for a jury to understand? I realise they will be able to understand that the patents have been upheld by PTAB etc, and that S and Nanoco were 'working together' for a while etc before S magically came up with the same idea and left us at the altar, but I do wonder as to when it comes to deciding whether there was infringement or not, S's experts could be saying one thing and Nanaoco's experts could be saying something else. Proving S have used N's process could be quite technical to follow... so maybe the presentation by the experts rather than the substantive facts may play an important role. What do others think?
Sammy88, I guess I haven't been following Samsung's action in other cases as I suspect whilst the personalities making decisions may (or may not) be the same, each case may be sufficiently different that the may not be a direct read across from how Samsung has behaved in other cases to our case. IF Samsung acted as claimed then it could be seen as an attempt to destroy Nanoco not just 'steal' their patents, as Nanoco had little else going for it accept those patents . So I still think some people are underestimating the possible settlement. However WDIK. However I was interested in your comment that S 'settle lots of patent cases'. Are the settlements you mention before trials or have they mainly been attempts to negotiate down awards after losing at trial? Thanks
I agree, I suspect S hasn't walked away and is still in there playing poker as usual. I realise everyone thinks S has form in playing games, but the way I read it S were probably rocked on to the back foot when the PTAB result was so definitively against them. Someone at HQ is weighing up the costs of a settlement now against the probability (yes I said probability) of a much higher cost later and possible serious reputational damage. Although they would hpe for a less damaging award by the court they will probably be all too aware of the worst case senario, a billion dollar settlement *3. Of course they will assess the risk of this high an award is small, but they won't be able to totally discount it. They are clearly not me, but if I were them I would play hard to get to pay the least I could but nevertheless settle now rather than let this run on and risk the worst case.
I have never been involved in a litigation like this so I may be completely wrong, but wouldn't a negotiated settlement require the top guys back at base camp to get involved to agree any deal? I don't mean just a quick phone call as any potential deal might be quite complicated. According to Hawi (thank you Hawi by the way) the wording was 'the mediation SESSION has been suspended' (my caps),. That is not the same as saying the mediation has been suspended. So I think that could mean almost anything, from talks have broken down ,to they are really close to a deal but need to go back to their respective high-up and have a detailed discussion with them about the progress so far and seek guidance whether to agree to the deal on the table or or not. Whilst I am not overly optimistic I think a settlement is a possibility at least. A deal, if one comes, could probably come at any time, even when the mediation session is suspended. In short I'm not sure what to make of all this!
Assuming the same no of buyers is a big assumption, Investors are not all the same and some (hopefully not too many) may think he knows more than them and think there may be a reason for his selling. Of course we have no real way of knowing why he was/is selling, could be personal reasons, risk management or he thinks he has discovered a better investment elsewhere. The SP might be a bit volatile as the trial date approaches.
Couldn't they have done that face to face or via zoom? (sorry couldn't resist!)
Whilst I agree the new orders etc is central to the company's success, I don't think we can criticize those interested mainly in the Samsung saga. Many of us have been here a long time and I remember years ago arguing with posters here (some still here) and telling them we didn't have TV's with our dots on the market, just a few comments by Nanoco management that people took to implying we did, or soon would have. No one believed me. So fwiiw, my take is all the STmicro stuff (?) is just a few consultancy work packages and whispers in the wind until we have firm orders. I hope not but BT could be another MC, or STmicro could do something similar to Samsung (and maybe others) I am still not convinced Dow didn't play some behind the scene roll. It all may work out well... or.. who knows. In particular the timescale is always 'soonish', and at least we know (I hope) when the trial will happen , and that is probably (?) nearer than significant firm orders. I know, I know, we may not win and even if we do there could be appeal(s), but it there was no Samsung case I think a lot of us LTMs apart from a few true believers, would have given up on Nanoco by now
Sorry I should have also said that if you want to see other documents (e.g. the attachments) you can use: https://www.docketbird.com/court-cases/Nanoco-Technologies-Ltd-v-Samsung-Electronics-Co-Ltd-et-al/txed-2:2020-cv-00038 and use the page selector at the bottom to get a full list of the court documents relevant to the case. However many important documents (not all) are behind the paywal. Although each individual document on its own is not very expensive it can add up unless you select only the most important the documents that you feel you really must read.