loophole: My non technical and non legal comments.
If you go by questions asked by the Court, IDCC definitely came out ahead, as the Judge who was doing the questioning was constantly interrupting the ZTE attorney for clarification.
Without being familiar with the technical details, to me it seemed that the IDCC attorney strongly brought out that although the apparently conflicting previous CAFC decisions were in regard to the same basic terms, different patents were involved and different wording was used in the different patents to explain the terms.
I also noted that the ZTE made a point that IDCC did not appeal the ITC Commissions final decision in the 868 case, inferring that IDCC apparently believed they had no basis for appeal. However as stated in a 10-K filing (below), IDCC did file an appeal but later dismissed it because the patents were set to expire; therefore, even if IDCC won the appeal, the ITC could not issue an exclusion order. It was interestingg that another judge interjected into the questioning, and asked about patent expiration.
“On October 10, 2014, InterDigital filed a petition for review with the Federal Circuit, appealing certain of the adverse determinations in the Commission’s August 8, 2014 final determination including those related to the ’966 and ’847 patents. On June 2, 2015, InterDigital moved to voluntarily dismiss the Federal Circuit appeal, because, even if it were to prevail, it did not believe there would be sufficient time following the court’s decision and mandate for the USITC to complete its proceedings on remand such that the accused products would be excluded before the ’966 and ’847 patents expire in June 2016. The court granted the motion and dismissed the appeal on June 18, 2015.”
