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The online contact Worlds found there appeared to have element(s) of control by Activision. The big question is why didn't PTAB see it that way initially in its original ruling, and is PTAB seeing any element of control now in this appeal?
Another big question, perhaps the biggest question of all is why does it take so long (over a year now) for PTAB to finalize this appeal? My guess is PTAB judges are wrestling or scratching their heads on this estoppel issue, perhaps a very complex issue even for "professional" like PTAB judges. Or could it be that PTAB judges are a bunch of idiots trying to decipher or to learn the meaning of estoppel?
Time line:
On September 7, 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a favorable ruling on Worlds’ behalf.
PTAB, the panel of judges issued an Order on November 29, 2018, setting forth the briefing schedule
On January 4, 2019, Bungie, Inc. filed its opening brief on remand.
On February 4, 2019, Worlds Inc. filed its response brief on remand.
On February 19, 2019, Bungie, Inc. filed its reply brief on remand in response to Worlds Inc.’s response brief.
No oral hearing was scheduled by the PTAB in conjunction with the briefing on remand.
So in exactly 4 weeks, which is on Sept. 7 2019, will be 1 year anniversary of CAFC’s decision.
Final brief was filed on 02/19/19. What did PTAB did since Feb 19, 2019? I hope the answer is nothing, and PTAB will issue a ruling before the 1 year anniversary come up.
Is it possible that PTAB will apply the last briefing date, which is 02/19/19, as a starting date to establish a statutory date for completion requirement?
Two possibilities:
1) Since Sept 7 falls on Saturday, and if PTAB is required to issue a ruling within 1 year time frame (what is statutory requirement regarding ruling deadline?) then Sept 6 is the deadline that PTAB has to meet.
2) If the last briefing on Feb 19 is applied, then a PTAB’s decision will be push back to as late as Feb 19, 2020?
By your count then it has been about 2 months over due for a decision, and add 4 more months to that, Sept. 2019 date would make it a whole year since the last PTAB/CAFC rulings.
So if the statute calls out for a ruling to be made within 1 year as noted by Stark12 in prior post, then a typical LATEST time frame for a decision should be around mid September 2019.
The 6-month time frame is an expectation based on typical or historical norm/average from past rulings.
It's has been about "6-month" since last PTAB/CAFC rulings so a decision can be any time now. But my inquiring mind wants to know what is the exact date for a PTAB decision when the 6-month anticipated time frame is applied? Does anyone know?
Keep in mind that there are SEC rules & regulations about insider tradings, stock manipulations, and what/when the insiders can or cannot disclose to the public.
FYI, Elon Musk of Tesla is in hot water with the SEC for his conducts that were interpreted as stock manipulations ...
I understand that the 6-month time frame for a decision is an internal scheduled goal or a flexible/self imposed deadline, but not a deadline imposed by legal requirement. So what is the self-imposed "drop-dead" date that we will hear from PTAB?
The guess estimated 45% contingency fee appears to be high and is on the conservative side.
PatentParsing's estimated valuation is reasonable except for the P/E multiple. IMO, multiple should NOT be applied here.
We are here for BINARY event(s) of court case(s). We are speculating on binary event(s) to be ruled by the court, and we are NOT looking growth NOR we are interest in other future Worlds' future ventures (if you want safety and growth then you should invest in other reputable and well established firms, but not Worlds).
CAFC has spoken and decided that privity the standard. So "privy" is the law of the land and PTAB must follow the court's "decree" and adopt the privity standard.
Since we (judge and ordinary citizen) all look at things differently, the question now is, what is PTAB's interpretation of "privity" and "control" in the context of RPI in this case?
With government shutting down by Trump (this is a fact because Trump had proudly acknowledged that it is a Trump's shut down), T.S.A. screeners are working without pay and many are calling out sick. Considering this factual info, my feeling is that government employee who responsibles for uploading/downloading Bungie's brief is probably at home sick today.
The utmost important issues in front of Worlds now are RPI and CE.
If Bungie were to concede on the RPI and CE issues, then Worlds will get its all lost claims back to further strengthen its case against ATVI. What does Bungie want in return for its cooperation?
If Bungie were to concede on the RPI and CE issues, what role will it play during the district court trial? Will the court allow Bungie to testify, and does Bungie have any evidences to support Worlds’ willful infringement claim?
In criminal proceeding prosecutor often give leniency or be very gentle to small fish in order to catch big fish. So let’s apply big fish & small fish analogy and a current highly charged political event as an example here (this is not a political discussion and is not meant to favor any side):
Mueller is basically using “get out of jail” cards and other reduced sentence incentives to entice cooperation from Cohen, Flynn, and other small fishes in order to catch the big fish, i.e. the corrupted Trump.
In Worlds’ current litigation, ATVI is a big fish (multi-billion $$$) and the small fish is Bungie (at most ten of million $$$), and Worlds can effective writing off Bungie as a “loss” in a the form of a settlement agreement in exchange for reclaiming all patent claims in had lost, which would greatly increase its chance of winning the multi-billion $$$ lawsuit against ATVI. Should Worlds be lenient to or forgive Bungie in order to get back all the claims in had lost in the hand of PTAB?
Discovery can be a two edged sword, it can help but it can also hurt Worlds -- we just don’t know (I personally think discovery would help Worlds, but I’m not sure about this).
With recent PTAB’s ruling of no new discovery, the RPI issue boils down to this:
Same evidences but with a new burden of persuasion requirement (burden of persuasion now belongs to Bungie), and a new standard of proof (privy instead of control).
So let’s look at these same evidences and put our thinking hat on and play devil advocate: What can Bungie possibly spin to persuade the PTAB judge panel that there is NO privy relationship between Bungie and ATVI? (keep in mind that Bungie is not allowed any new evidences for its RPI spinning/persuasion)
I don't think there is a directive stating that Worlds has to file first or vice versa. And without any such directive, both side will strategically file at the last minute before the deadline to prevent the opposing side from gaining any strategic advantage.
If there is no requirement for "first filing", then both sides would file at the last minute before the filing deadline so that no side would have advantage.
IIRC Bungie first brought up the CE in its brief, and WDDD's brief also has a counter argument to Bungie's CE. The CE issue then argued during the oral hearing.
Does Kidrin have a succession plan for Worlds Inc.?
PartentParsing's share price projection is very comprehensive, but I think he/she improperly apply PE factor in the calculation.
The original share price of Marimed (MRMD) has its own PE if it exists, so there is no need to re-apply PE here. And with regarding to Worlds (WDDD) without Marimed, it has no current revenue and I don't think applying PE ratio that depends on future damage awards is not appropriate here.
IMO, for Worlds situation there should be no PE (i.e. a PE of 1).
Here are the formulas:
Let a be WDDD total cash value on its holding of MRMD
a = MRMD current share price x MRMD shares currently own by WDDD
Let b be cash value per share WDDD based on "a" valuation.
b = a / total outstanding share of WDDD
Yes, Kidrin of Worlds can ask for the moon, the sun or the impossible.
Worlds certainly has large stake in Marimed, but I think such requested will be laughed at and be soundly rejected by Marimed board for legal and Marimed business operational reasons.
I think Kidrin has a better chance of having a date with Miss America, Miss Universe, and Miss World than receiving the moon or the sun from Marimed's board.
You have suggested a bad or risky idea, and it is not practical.
You are banking on the success of MRMD which by itself is a bad or risky idea. If MRMD turns out to be a bad investment (no dispute that MRMD is doing great NOW), will the government bail out WDDD like they did for banking, mortgage, and automobile industries during the financial crisis not so long ago?
And your suggestion is not practical because it is next to impossible to find loan sharks to invest in very high risk ventures where the ROI is CAP at 25% or less.
Using your number of 5M shares and 5 cents dividend, and let’s assume weighted average stock price for the last 30 trading days is 0.25 cents, then that would be an equivalent dividend of 20% ($250,000 dividend income on an investment $1,250,000.
Since WDDD is an extremely high risk investment, it would be very difficult to find loan sharks (venture capitalists, investment bankers, investors or whatever terms you want to use) that would want to cap the ROI to 20% max. Because of the very high risk nature, the loan sharks typically want a 20% ROI as a MINIMUM, and then PLUS a potential ROI of 100%, 200% or even higher; and only dilutive convertible stock transactions that could give an additional yield of 100%, 200% or higher.
The court often preaches judicial efficiency, and as such it has policy in place to follow its preaching of judicial efficiency. It would be a waste of judicial resource and tax payer money if it unnecessarily assigns a new panel to an “old” case.
Thanks for your correction. Do you think Worlds will get favorable ruling on the collateral estoppel issue?
Worlds had asked for collateral estoppel, and if Worlds is collateral estoppeled, then the recent vacate AND remand opinion by the CAFC effective become a vacate ONLY decision (the remand for RPI determination and discovery becomes moot).
And if collateral estoppel does not apply, then RPI determination is necessary, and the PTAB may need discovery in order to address RPI issue.
We need to digest the court's opinion to understand the exact meaning of "remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion."
With regarding to "time bar" RPI, the burden of persuasion is on Bungie.
And with regarding "Peter Christos" RPI, should burden of investigation be Coal?
I’ve read lots of praises and supports for Kidrin, and I agree with all those positive comments. But I have one big disagreement on the matter of executive compensation when Worlds' current financial condition and its struggle in this fight against Activision are taken into consideration. One very important thing I want to remind everyone is Kidrin is human just like anyone here, and can be subjected to $$$ temptation and other temptations. And without check and balance and opposing voice of reasons, any human can be corrupted and could lead to abuse of power.
So, yes we all can praise Kidrin, shower him with love, honey & kind words, but please keep in minds that we are all human and without any form of check and balance, money can then be a root cause of all evils.
Correction: No, I'm not advocating the CEO should work for free or for food.
You are 100% correct that I have never run a public company, but I do have common sense and life experience.
No, I'm advocating the CEO should work for free or for food.
Even with pay cut, the current salary + benefits is still excessive for a simple job of coordinating with law firms. There were no sales to worry about, no new product development, no R&D. So what exactly did the CEO do for the last umpteem years beside coordinating with law firms and filing SEC reports (the lawyers did all the dirty works)?
With regarding investing on MRMD, the CEO deserve a credit for now whether it was pure luck or your good investing decision. So, yes MRMD turns out to be a good investment now, but no one can guarantee that MRMD will be fine next 6 months, or years.
(One should look at the financial crisis not so long ago where the investment bankers took reckless and unnecessary risk to reap all the benefits, but when their reckless and unnecessary risk caused collapse of the banking system the taxpayers/governments then had to step in to save us from a depression ...)
Who would want to invest in Worlds after seeing the new employment contract? This is outrageous and totally ridiculous.
Worlds needs the ALL money to fight Activision, and where do we find extra cash to pay the CEO $200,000/year + generous benefits?
Even if we receive favorable ruling and can move forward to district court, I don't see justification for paying someone $200,000/year + car allowance + health benefit + life insurance benefit + millions shares of stock option for a simple job of coordinating with law firm(s).
Does anyone know the impact to stock dilution due to the stock option granted under the new employment contract?
Let's not kiss the CEO's arse, and we should speak out against this new employment contract.
I don’t see any problem with the new employment contract if Worlds is generating big revenue and is profitable. But considering Worlds' current financial condition, it needs to use ALL the cash to fight Activision. IMO, an employment contract at $200,000/year with an automatic raise of 10% per year, plus car allowance and other benefits is TOO EXCESSIVE. What exactly is the CEO doing now while we are waiting for CAFC decision or district trial? What kind of manual and/or intellectual labor that can justify this new employment contract? Would you pay someone $200,000/year just for coordinating with law firm(s)?
This employment contract is outrageous and totally ridiculous. We need to speak up against this employment contract.
In guessing in the context of Worlds, the vacate (vacate PTAB's decision) and remand (for further RPI discovery) ruling is basically the same as a REMAND only ruling.
Most likely the stock price will drop if the ruling is either a "vacate & remand" or a "remand only" ruling, and Worlds' valuation of MRMD can help to buffer the drop in share price WDDD.
I think it can happen any time during Court's business hours.
I have no idea how you jump to a conclusion of a "likely remand" decision.
The SCOTUS certiorari that you cited will take time for the system to process, and this CAFC panel will not drop dead of Worlds' appeal that they have been working on for months (and presumably near completion) to wait for the SCOTUS decision.
Anything is possible, but a "dismissal" is borderline ridiculous and impossible.
Unless informed by Worlds and Activision, the court is totally in the dark about any ongoing settlement discussion.
I don't see a parallel between class action lawsuit vs. case-by-case lawsuit. I think you are comparing apple vs. orange.
The only sure way to find out about the fees for future lawsuits/damage awards/settlements is by dissecting the contract. Unfortunately, we do not know the contractual items in the contract.
(It is entirely possible that the contract stipulated that Susman Godfrey be part of future lawsuits/settlements/damage awards. And do you know this for sure?)