I agree w/you and disagree as well. I agree IP battles are long. I disagree in that I don't see this as simply a basic IP battle. 1) I have never seen any convincing info that the patents are what they've been cracked up to be. If that's the case, ultimately, then it's not "a battle", it's more of a throw some stuff against the wall & see if it sticks. 2) 20 years and to my knowledge, company never made a dime (but certainly talked big many time & in many ways). That fact, if true, applies across all sorts of products & services offered & touted. None ever amounted to anything afaik. 3) I vehemently disagree w/your assumtion/assessment that no one would buy us & instead would fight til can't fight anymore. That makes no sense to me, in terms of vplm & the industry. If a product is a proven thing, with no question about its need & value, then, as I have been pointing out for long, and esp in this case, there's no value or benefit to fight to the death, because in this case, IT WOULD BE AN INEVITABILITY that sooner or later, the patent rights would be upheld and all the many infringers would be forced to pay the piper, big time and far more than simply buying/licensing sooner. This is a fact, I believe, that cannot and should not be ignored. It's so simple. If the patents are truly what is absolute necessary to use & control the voip world, then there's no way that vplm can be ultimately defeated which in turn means they all will have to pay thru the nose. And don't forget that the tout has been for years that THERE IS NO WAY AROUND IT! Not complicated. If there is no way around it, then what's the point of spending boucou time & $ fighting it when YOU KNOW the inevitability is you will lose and have to pay big time & maybe even so much it could take your company down. And if the company is too big to be taken down by such costs as purchase, licensing & fines, then still, why pay much more later than less now or previous to now? To me there are only 2 possible scenarios: 1) the patents are indeed all that & eventually all will have to pay gargantuan amts of money to vplm or whomever buys it, or 2) the patents are not all that in which case the whole thing is worthless and moot. So, what you say assumes the patents are indeed all that. Ok, fine I hope you're right and yes it'll take time. But my take is that there has been way more than ample time for the players to have investigated and due diligenced it to death thus they KNOW if the patents are all that or not. If they know they are, then I see it as a big exercise in futility to fight the losing battle & they would/should buy/settle/license or whatever. On the other hand, if they know the patents are not all that, they can't just sit back and risk some court giving vplm an undue award. I think above is very sound reasoning...you don't leave a pile of gold lying in the middle of the road for someone else to come along & snatch up.
