UnifiedOnline Inc fka UOIP

[long uoip]

actual EXCELLENT POST scruffer, it seems no matter how many ways we flip the data that we are facing.. .odds are in our favor, only dilemma is knowing if it's going to take a short or long time for justice for the 3 inventors (given goodbuddy's passing & demographic to various shareholders I hope it's sooner than later)
yes indeed, there are many off ramps on the highway, but if the cops want to catch ya, they eventually will.. .with 10 police cars, a helicopter & k9 unit to to boot.
deep pocket defendants have exhibited their dumb factor a decade ago when they chose not to buy the patents for $5 million, now they're paying for that just for lawyers fees.. .
wealth & intelligence do not go hand in hand (too many examples in recent times or history to even try to begin to list)

article ~ Only patent disputes where it is difficult to predict who will win are likely to proceed further to a final determination on the merits.
..parties may settle when both decide that the benefits to doing so exceed their private costs of continuing litigation.
it is not just how valuable a patent is that is important, but to whom that value accrues that matters.
The courts do little to counter these incentives. Instead, courts promote settlement to save the public the expense of a trial or lengthy litigation.
In fact, it is considered a hallmark of efficient court management to encourage parties to resolve their disputes outside the courtroom because litigation costs are also a loss to society.
..it it is cheaper to pay for a license or engineer around an erroneously granted patent than to challenge it.
Under perfect information—that is, when both parties know with certainty who would win at trial—no trials would occur. There is no reason for the parties to expend resources to achieve anoutcome which is determined with certainty in advance. For trials to occur, either the parties must be behaving irrationally, or there must be some uncertainty about the probability of a victory in the courtroom
In the “divergent expectations” models, uncertainty arises because both parties are simply unsure about the prospect of victory. In asymmetric information models, one party has more information than the other, and
his settlement offers are intended to serve as a signal of his bargaining strength or as a mechanism for determining the strength of his opponent.
Thus, models of settlement describe how the parties bargain to determine shares of the surplus that would result from avoiding the costs of a trial under conditions of uncertainty and asymmetric information. These bargaining models have been used to explore how differences in stakes,
the cost of litigation, and legal rules influence the choice between settling the dispute or going to trial. Recent theoretical work also takes a more sophisticated view of what happens within the case by modeling both the costs and the revelation of information that occur during the discovery phase preceding trial.
Another theory explaining the existence of trials is “asymmetric stakes”: if the defendant’s loss does not equal the plaintiff’s gain, there may be no surplus from the avoidance of a trial to divide and no point in bargaining to a settlement. Usually, the asymmetric stakes are produced by costs and benefits created outside the courtroom, such as the reputation effects or precedents created for other litigation.

https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1175&context=law_lawreview

The vast majority of patent disputes in the US settle before they end up in court.
One reason for this, it is claimed, is because scared defendants are worried into making suits go away by aggressive plaintiffs who give them a choice of settlement at one price or fighting a suit at a higher price. And, undoubtedly, there is an element of that involved.
However, there is a lot more on top. For example, looking from the plaintiff’s perspective there are also significant disincentives to take a fight all the way - especially against deep pocket corporate opponents.
the odds of prevailing in a US patent case are likely to favour settlement in all but the most open and shut cases of infringement.
The US - it’s the land of opportunity, including for inventors who protect their dreams with patent protection. In 2016, the US government granted more than 325,000 patents to inventors.
Inventors enforce their patent rights through litigation, when they believe a corporation is practising their protected idea. In 2016 there were 5,100 patent litigation lawsuit filings. The vast majority of patent lawsuits settle before trial—95% to 97% of them.
Some policy makers and corporations strongly criticise patent enforcement practices that favour early settlement. They argue early settlements to avoid testing the merits on patent disputes
are an abusive litigation practice.
early settlement isn’t an abusive practice, but rather a prudent business decision.

First, patent litigation is structured like a video game. You must win every level to end up the winner. If you lose any 1 level, no matter how far you’ve come, then it’s game over.
And like a video game, every level has its own gatekeeper. The table below describes each level of litigation, the gatekeeper, and provides the 2017 statistics of winning at each level.
Litigation level / Gatekeeper / Plaintiff Win Rate
Pretrial motion / Judge / 6% - 15%*
Trial / Jury / 61% - 66%*
Appeals / Appeals panel / 38% - 40%**
In level one, you must convince a judge why you have a winnable case. If you reach level 2, you present your case to a jury. If you win there then at level 3, you must convince an appeals panel to uphold a favourable jury verdict.
What are your overall chances of winning at every level, to win at patent litigation? It’s just 9% to 14%.
Second, at every level you must perform a flawless juggling routine.
In every patent litigation, as a baseline you must prove a corporation infringes your patent. This is one ball to juggle in every patent litigation.
But a corporation can defend itself by raising up to 27 patent defences, each representing an additional ball to juggle.
A corporation has 17 validity defences to invalidate your patent, two enforceability defences to render it unenforceable, four damages defences to prevent you from recovering the money you want and four infringement defences to be excused for infringing.
If you drop the ball on any one of the 27 defences, then you lose and the defendant wins.
The chart below illustrates the chances of winning this juggling routine. It is pulled from a 2000-2013 composite study from the University of Houston on the win/loss rate per legal issue in
patent litigation.
Let’s say you accuse a corporation of directly infringing your patent and the corporation raises a
validity defence called 102(e) - this creates two legal issues you need to successfully juggle
through the patent litigation. You have a 17.4% chance of winning both issues, through all levels.
But suppose the corporation raises two more defences, two validity defences called 103 obviousness and 112 indefiniteness. This now creates four legal issues to juggle. Your chances of winning drop to 5.5%.
Adding just two defences decreases your chances of success by 42.8%, because you must win on every legal issue at every level in front of a judge, jury and appeals panel.
If you’re a patent owner, do you go for the home run on every legal issue, at every level in the litigation, for a 9% to 14% chance of winning?
Or do you do what my client did? Take a settlement offer to reduce risk to the patent and live to fight another day?
Most people do what my client did. That’s why 90% of all patent cases settle before claim construction and, as noted above, 95% to 97% settle before trial.
This high settlement rate may seem alarming, but it demonstrates business judgement due to skewed risks against patent holders.
If you’re a patent owner and are considering patent litigation, consider taking a page from my client's book and minimising risk to your patent assets.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/documents.lexology.com/d8b354e4-db2b-41a5-b0bb-88a5aaf8f294.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAVYILUYJ754JTDY6T&Expires=1594029592&Signature=CVz9T%2F3MFFz%2FPHWyucD%2BycizspY%3D