No time, actually. Just typed it out in 30 seconds.
1) the patents have historically held up in courts and the previous appeals, as this was just the latest in a number of court cases for VHC that have gone the distance (Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, etc.)... in no jury verdict or court judgment/opinion have the core VHC patents been found invalid... but the concern now for VHC in regards to patent validity is the PTAB. The PTAB just recently granted inter partes review and granted the joinder of Black Swamp IP LLC to the Mangrove hedge fund's petition for IPR.
2) CAFC would only receive an en banc request after a 3 man CAFC panel has disposed of the case first. En banc requests are rare to be granted. There's no guarantee anyone is going to even ask for an en banc re-hearing, especially since there has been no hearing that even needs to be re-heard. Personally, I think it's a losing game to handicap the CAFC at any level. They have in my opinion been very unpredictable as policies and agendas change from one session to the next.
3) SCOTUS would hear the case if they thought the CAFC messed up in a big way. And since it's not even back to the CAFC yet, we would be getting way ahead of ourselves to analyze that. The Supremes grating certiorari is even more rare than CAFC granting en banc review.
The key issue in Apple's appeal is going to be the damages model used by VHC. The final verdict was a huge number. That's what CAFC is going to be looking at. The question is will it hold up or will CAFC remand again? I think the valuation model used at trial hits all the check marks based on CAFC's written opinion on remand. And also because this new trial included multiple infringement levels of intersection (VPN, Facetime, iMessage) -- which makes the complicated task of apportionment much more advanced than other cases tried before. But the CAFC does what it wants, so time will tell.
