Something smells alright! Because you can't think of a reason, Donato must want to dismiss? How about Donato knowing VPLM and amzn are far along in settlement talks and wanting to see how that proceeds?
There are probably dozens of potential reasons for Donato's actions and going straight to a dismissal assumption, PROBABLY RATTLING SOME HOLDERS, seemed like a good course? WOW!
so judge donato doesnt know whats going on in the settlement conferences....so for him to say "hey everyone lets stop these settlement conferences" it just smells bad (because i cant think of a reason why he would do that besides him wanting to rule to dismiss the case via the alice motion thats pending)....just my opinion