Morning Rain,
I, for one, feel your posts are clear and informative. My only difference with you lies not in fact, but in opinion, because neither of us has the definitive "fact" yet. You have done your DD and are confident "enough" in management's execution of goals. I am not yet totally confident in their execution, and lack of execution can bring down this company. My feeling is, if VRNG does not "execute" in a way that shareholders feel "material" for the near future, that the share price will languish for a considerable amount of time, and not be a good investment. that is why I am placing as much importance on this DTV case as i am. I will concede longer term, you may be absolutely correct, but if that longer term is 2-3 years out for a 20-50% return, I may not take the risk.
You ask why a company would fight. A company can attempt to bully VRNG if it feels that it will send a message to other "patent trolls", basically seeing if VRNG can win an "Pyrrhic victory" and destroy itself consuming its much smaller resources. The Big company may lose the battle but win the war. For the big company, possibly a short term financial loss, but a longer term gain in reduction of challenges to its operations. Your argument against this is how much did ZTE lose, and will this be a deterrent to other infringers? I don't know how much they did (which may be important). You also base your argument on Cohen's statement of patents already being proved valid in the UK. I believe the USPTO upheld the Lang patent in the US to all challenges. All the "material" victories we achieved against GOOG (as outlined by Red Angus) were rendered IMmaterial by one judge with (what I consider) preconceived judgment. Larger companies may feel they have an equal opportunity to beat VRNG based on these past occurrences. As I believe you have mentioned...the current atmosphere in the courts is not as favorable to patent holders as it has been. Big companies may feel that is to their advantage.
Management execution: When I look, I actually side more with you. I thought management executed brilliantly in the GOOG case with the exception of laches. GOOG was defeated on every point in terms of court presentation, arguments, and expert witness. I can't fault VRNG on that at all. Their prosecution against ZTE SEEMED excellent as well, so the outcome left us all scratching our heads, no matter if the final conclusion is positive in some form for VRNG. Vacuums in information lead to uncertainty and the markets do not like uncertainty.
When you win a case against Nokia (Cohen) and pull in one of the best information processing specialists in the country (expert witness from Carnegie-Mellon in the GOOG case) and then hire David Boies to present your case before the Supreme Court if accepted, you are operating in the highest echelons of professional competence. I applaud them for that. And that is the reason I hold my core position.
Best,
arp
