The fact that vplm is "in its best position ever", reveals just how bad that actually is. It shows its a low bar. Most normal companies, being in the same shape vplm is currently in, would not be too happy about it or brag about it. But vplm has a major need to "put a good face fwd" in spite of the huge problems & adversity it finds itself in.
It began its present business model 5 yrs ago. Since, it has never made a sale of its only "products", patents. It has never sold a license either. And it has never made a settlement with any alleged, accused infringer. By ANY acceptable measure in the business world, the above facts are indicative of a very poor scenario.
They chose a new business model, 5 yrs ago, and that was to put up for sale, their patents or to sell licenses and obviously accept settlements from any infringer.
As far as I know, after making a decision to sell, it would be normal for a company to start advertising their products as aggressively as possible. To my knowledge, vplm has never made a single advertisement of their products. As a result, and not unexpectedly, they have never made a sale.
That, by any reasonable measure, known to the business world, is not a good thing. To tout it as being "in the best position ever" is tantamount to taking a piece of dead wood, which has been bio-degrading for years, in the dirt, treating it with some new preservatives to stop any further breakdown, and now labeling it as "being the best condition ever". It's putting your best foot fwd when one foot has been amputated & the other has lost 5 toes.
To recap, that's no sales, licenses or settlements in the entire 5 yr history of the present business model and never been advertised. To add, there have been many worldwide conferences where the industry players get together to showcase what they have. Such attendance would be a great thing for a company who has chosen to not advertise its products, however vplm has made the conscious choice to not ever once attend any.
Also, the only products they have, developed 14 yrs ago, have never been proven to be effective in a modern, current internet/voip telephony setting. Thus, no known need for and it follows, no value. So by any & every known measure of value, for a product, vplm has shown none. Is it any wonder thy have no interest from the industry, nor any sales of any kind.
Moreover, it says it had approximately 10% of itself, that being its shares, stolen by a former executive around 5 yrs ago. It has tried to retrieve those shares, a massive 125mm, ever since, completely unsuccessfully. They have not been able to retrieve a single share. Their filings over the yrs, seem to suggest that at least some of those shares were properly accounted, for debt conversion, so a major contradiction exists & that does help its case at all. They filed suit years ago, to get the shares back, but the case has gone nowhere to date. Not indicative of a strong position, these things.
After the 5 core patemts were created by another company, Digifonica & subsequently purchased by vplm in a takeover, vplm has continued to create newer, ancillary & child patemts. As a whole, the old & newer ones, claim to be the basis for and absolutely needed by the voip arena. Yet no other voip service provider company has ever shown a shred of desire to obtain any of them. This is extremely odd for a company that has professed for years, to be "the technical leader of the voip industry". Again, by no measure, in the business world, does this describe a company in its best condition ever, for it it were, it would be so from a ridiculously low bar.
The company has said, thru various ways of getting the word out, for the entire 5 yrs, that talks, negotiations, and sales, mergers, partnerships, licenses, acquisitions, etc etc, have been "expected" to occur soon, or right around the corner, or imminent, but never once panned out to be true. That's yet another poor measure of the company.
Their biggest claim to fame, so far, has been the loss of 8 ipr challenges by various companies who challenged a couple of the patents. Those losses are touted as a big win for vplm, and it helped to boost the pps, along with pumping of the news, elsewhere. However, as has been the case with the very few price spikes seen by vplm, it always begins a slow steady has decline back towards where it came from. It's lost about 80% of those gains since. The PTAB decision, favoring vplm was followed, in the biggest case vs Apple, by a motion to the court from apple which put a stop to any fwd progress to vplms infringement case against them by way of a stay and the necessary wait for ptab to rule on it. The PTAB is very upset w/vplm for what was done to them by vplm, via the sawyer threat letters to the PTAB and other officials. The PTAB decided to throw out the tribunal that had ruled against vplm, to institute, and replace w/new panel, with no explanation whatsoever, an unprecedented & unexpected move. The new panel, quite possibly corrupted by the forces that want vplm to win, overturned the panel they replaced, by deciding to rule against the companies that brought the challenges in the 1st place.
If potential buyers of vplm were sitting in the fence previous to this development, that ptab decision shouldve been more than enough to take it over the top & result in a sale or at least some licensing or settlements. None occurred.
In the meantime, the PTAB has refused to hand down a decision on the apple motion, for what is now a blow away record delay time, 8 months, which has prompted the judge in the infringement case to not lift the stay in place, even tho both parties requested it. So the case cannot go fwd. And it's been revealed that there is no time deadline for the PTAB to hand down a ruling, therefore they effectively dont have to hand down a ruling ever. It's my belief they have done this on purpose as payback for the damage the letters did to their agency. Being a new record time for no decision and the fact that the motion filed by Apple has been repeatedly described as a frivolous motion. A new record of ptab time for no decision, does not seem commensurate with a frivolous motion. In any event, since these actions have effectively put a total hold on the case moving fwd, that does seem to me to describe a "best position" ever scenario. It's now 9 months since the IPR decisions. And they took a year or more to be decided. There is no indication of a decision coming. The PTAB was asked about it roughly a couple months ago & their reply was basically, we'll get to it when we get to it. All of this indicates to me that the PTAB, having no deadline to meet, has no intention of rendering any decision. It's a dead situation unless the PTAB decides. Thats not my idea of "being in a good position". That's my idea of the opposite.
Meanwhile, the other infringement cases, about 4, I think, had their stays lifted 7 or 8 mos ago and progress in those cases is as slow as a slug. Little progress has been reported for cases free to move fwd for 7/8 months. At this rate, one would expect these trial ls to take yrs & yrs. They seem to barely be able to get started... Same thing for the alleged stolen shares cases. No movement in years. If thats indicative of "best position ever", that's pretty bad imho.
There's more, much more to paint this portrait of "best position ever" but it's just to much to list..
AI
