Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Nanonano - surely it depends on the agreed damages value and how long it should be paid back over (if this model of payback were selected). Are you suggesting this value of £75 premium per tv (on top of future royalty value) is way too low or too high, or therefore the payback would be too short or too long? I’m just throwing ideas around if possible ways a settlement award may be hidden from the public. The numbers are just for demonstration really.
If I am S and wanting to reduce public criticism and keep the lid on this, I’d offer not £25 per TV sold historically i’d offer say £100+ per TV for an agreed future volume of TVs to cover the historical damages question without having to publicly admit the theft. That’s what I was getting at in the point that the damages may not be as easy to understand as we’d like. I know of damages calculations like this being paid in the past.
Sorry.. Hawi! Lol. Bleedin autocorrect grr.
Hawk, I think we’re probably all in the same page here. It all depends on how much of a settlement is cash and how much is payment by other means such as future business/royalty, and if it’s the latter this may not be tied to any settlement in a public announcement.
Trial
Settlements are commonly confidential. Accounts are public, and information pertaining to share price is public. But where an arrangement is made whereby future revenue is generated for instance, it doesn’t have to be disclosed that that was part of a settlement agreement. E.g A new contract to supply a large ‘Asian’ company equalling XYZ revenue year on year supplying XYZ dots at price XYZ etc etc has been made. Doesn’t need to disclose the new large Asian company is S based on a settlement agreement.
Lots of speculation will ensue following an agreed settlement but not all details will ever be made public, if that is what the agreement says. Many have suggested some of these agreements will be obvious, and I agree, but I doubt it will be a clear cut ‘we won and we won these awards’. Except for cash appearing in the balance sheet as posters have suggested which would need some explanation in the accounts. Personally I’d prefer the train where a settlement will be public.
I think it is quite common for the precise nature of a settlement deal to be confidential, although agree that purely cash damages will soon become evident. There are other forms of payments that may never be disclosed.
Nitwitty.
I must say I’m unsure why you are on this BB. You only like the sound of your own voice and believe everything anyone else says to be inferior to your views. Why waste time in any kind of inferior conversation just to keep talking to yourself?
Many on this board are experts in their own right, and the overlap between us all I believe is more powerful than any individual voice, and so I am privileged that I can take part in a constructive back and forth between all the contributors here who give up their time willingly to voice an opinion and venture advice, from which we can all construct our own opinions upon which we invest.
If you value others’ posts so little then please move on as I’d personally prefer the tone of the board not to be brought down to that of insults.
Thank you
Unless of course something since the decision to pursue infringement has changed to make the case for infringement weaker in the eyes of the senior executives. Which is why I come back to the point I raised last week - the only thing that can have changed for me is if a definition of an MCC they were relying on could potentially be redefined - hence weakening potential infringement case. I still see that filing for redefinition of the MCC as pivotal. But personally still feel it is unlikely to be changed due to the earlier ruling to respect Markman.
The current share price makes no sense to me. How many times have we heard that on boards? But seriously, I saw some real risk in approaching the PTAB for a verdict on validity of the patents- patent courts and their decisions are notoriously difficult to fathom sometimes. Regardless of what the actual truth of the matter is, they make subjective decisions so I was wary of the risks.
Conversely, having worked in the tech sector for my whole life I know for a fact that the decision to pursue infringement through the courts is one that is not made lightly- you have to be absolutely sure your Ip has been infringed before embarking on the very costly journey.
What’s more, when going through third party funders you can’t just rely on judgement, opinion, bravado, arrogance or ignorance (all great board directors traits) when making that decision- you have to sell the conviction through evidential based argument to convince someone why they should spend millions on taking your case to court.
Against that backdrop how can there be no premium on share value before and after the decision that the patents are valid and all that is left is the infringement case??
How much of a premium comes down to the damages calculation which I’m not going to get into, but as it stands this price must be seen as bargain compared to previous valuations, regardless of who is selling right now.
I’ll continue to add until more news is available.
How can it not be important to understand as much of the arguments and the science as possible when investing significant amounts of one’s wealth? N still has to prove infringement, and the definitions attached to the claim language is everything.
We all know the circumstantial case for infringement but to prove that they did actually infringe isn’t a case of ‘they changed their story and we don’t like the way they have acted’. N will need to prove that S infringed one of the claims in these patents, and they are all hanging off the 5 tightly defined independent claims which contain scientific terms as defined in the description of the patent, and which have since been more specifically defined at Markman.
I don’t see this thing as open and shut yet- not until the language is tied down. Simplistically, and apologies grandmas and eggs and all that - if the patented car is defined as a 4 wheeled thing then producing the bicycle doesn’t infringe. If the car is defined as a multiple wheeled vehicle then producing a bike does. Doesn’t matter what we think a car is.
Don’t get me wrong, I think their argument to change the definition language is weak, but the point is if they manage it then they surely stand a better chance of winning the infringement case - which is why they are proposing the amendment to the language.
Anyway sorry for the rant, but I’ll continue to follow the logic and the science.
Good point Feeks, forgot about the Emulsion case, although I’m less clear how N prove infringement there.
And the obvious follow up - if their request is denied doesn’t it mean our evidence of infringement is now nailed on and then it’s just down to damages?
Kind of feel this decision might be quite pivotal.
Probably getting too excited!
Thanks
Ok, having read it for the 10th time I now see that this is the ‘text for the proposed order’, ie they’d like this to be what the court say.
That said, my question about the consequence of such an order stands- can anyone speak to whether changing the definition to this knocks our our physical evidence of infringement?
Thanks
Someone mentioned a while back that Nano has evidence that there are MCCs found in the Samsung product. The language in the recent docket relating to the definition of a MCC still concerns me. I know several posters say this is a position/challenge rather than a decision by the court, it’s just the language is hard to read anything other than the court deciding to agree with Samsungs proposed narrower definition of an MCC. My question is - can anyone who knows of the evidence finding an MCC in the Samsung product speak to how this evidence might be affected by the narrower MCC definition. Could this be a crucial element in the case proving infringement and has this court decision (/might a future court decision depending on your read of the docket) to narrow the definition of an MCC blown out that evidence of infringement? Thanks
I suspect the share price has been held lower by RG and his selling, and hopefully that is passed or will pass soon.
There’s also the fact that this is a jury trial not decided by a judge which holds all sorts of unknowns. Not always logical decisions from jurys. In our favour though is the human back story, along with the David and Goliath angle, as well as a bit of West versus East which believe it or not does still play a part with local jurys. If the first two are well articulated I believe it gives us even more of an advantage, an advantage which is far more important than if it were a judge alone presiding. IMO
Don’t really get how a single seller of a million shares was found, and if not why it didn’t staircase up the share price trying to get hold of those. Is this share really that liquid?
1million share buy
It’s a good summary Feeks, but have we explored one point which might be the aim of S to delay long enough that the concerned patents run out thus negating need for ongoing future royalty payments, just the need to settle the historical dispute?
Unless someone has a good reason why that cannot be true Matty that makes perfect sense to me. No one has ever gifted anything for free in business from my experience. Whether it be a direct link as theorised here, or for potential future benefit.