Your scenarios are absolutely improbable. It's as if you have zero business experience. I find it laughable that anyone is even entertaining the notion that Vringo is a good candidate for acquisition. Vringo has nothing worth acquiring. Sure they've got some patents that they paid very little money for, but that's all those patents are worth without enforcement. Microsoft certainly is not going to buy them for hundreds of millions of dollars just so they can license them to other people for the next 4 years. Vringo is not going to sell their patents to anyone else so those people can try to monetize them. They are already doing the best job anyone possibly could making money off those patents. Also, do you remember that Vringo expanded their legal team? Did they hire attorneys who specialized in M&A? No! They hired seasoned vets of the intellectual property game. That's not a move a company that is for sale would make.
The purpose of settling this early in the game is to minimize their exposure to a possible judgement. Why pay 100 million in court when you can pay 50 million out of court. That's the smart move because Microsoft knows that if Google was found to infringe, then there is zero question that Microsoft will be found to infringe as well. Insurance companies do this all the time, and this isn't any different. It is good business sense.
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