I am going to respectfully disagree with you regarding the fact that he is not completely separate or unbiased as he does not work for VPLM/DIGI in any capacity, he works for the USPTO, additionally he is expected to be unbiased as an employee of the USPTO.
Good points and to a certain extent I agree with you.
We will have to agree to respectfully disagree on the 3rd party point.
Otis Thompson, Jr. was the examiner for the original LI applied for and awarded to Diginfonica. He worked with (not for) Knobbe Marten who was retained at the time by Digifonica and continues to be retained - in a certain capacity - by VPLM.
Yes, Thompson, Jr., is a 3rd party in the sense that he is not paid directly by VPLM or Knobbe Marten or Digifonica. However, because of his long history with VPLM's portfolio and because he was involved way back when with the application process he is, in my opinion, not a true independent 3rd party when it comes to patent VALIDATION.
He is a 3rd party but not one that is completely disconnected (or as you said "separate") from VPLM or Digifonica. A true 3rd party offering a validation of the portfolio would be someone like a patent lawfirm who would issue a letter of opinion (do a prior art analysis).
And to clarify, I am not questioning the validity of the patents or the validity of the origins of the excerpt.
And again I want to thank you for providing such valuable information that you absolutely didn't need to do but that should be appreciated by everyone here.
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