Still trying to assess whether this is a good patent troll play, and this confirms my suspicions: it's not. I'm contemplating publishing my months worth of DD, but hold onto it for now.
In any case, how can anyone view this as good for MMR? This is in essence a royalty-free (or low cost) standstill agreement. MMR just got owned by WebMD.
I could see a whole lot of reasons why this would happen, but none of them are good for MMR. My best bets:
1. MMR agreed to dismiss in order to preserve the validity of their patent -- in other words, WebMD has stuff MMR doesn't want anyone else to know about. The recent filings on Public Pair at the PTO in the current prosecution of the still-pending applications included at least one WebMD reference.
2. WebMD has a really good prior user defense: WebMD was using a patented method either in secret or in public continuously before the filing of the patent. This is not an invalidity defense, but a non-infringement position by the prior user. This makes sense since WebMD was in the PHR business before MMR and is even mentioned in the MMR patent specification.
3. WebMD doesn't actually infringe any of the claims of the '466 patent?
4. Or, the actual "infringement value" of the WebMD PHR portal is so diminishingly small that the cost of pursuing the case would exceed the likely damages. That's actually consistent with WebMD's public disclosures about the value of its independent patient portal.
In any case, none of these reasons are good for MMR.
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