Now for the USPTO part of your post:

4        THE WILD CARD-USPTO:

a    USPTO does not care about the court proceeding calendar of events. They will rule when they are ready. But, TPL can influence the timing of the ruling by how/when they move through the proceedings of validating (or invalidating) their patent claims. I seriously doubt that our team has much control over the review schedule.  The USPTO is in the driver's seat.  Missed delivery dates could ruin us. TPL patents will be validated and I will not go into details on why I believe this. Just accept that premise and lets move on; It has been discussed to great lengths on this thread. Hopefully correct, as it's just us and the USPTO providing input to the process at this point.

b    If I were TPL I would not want the USPTO decision to appear until after the mediation period has begun. This would allow that shadow of doubt to remain in the back of the defendants mind. Okay, so you believe we will prevail with the USPTO, but you think that this bit of information would hurt the mediation process?  More uncertainty, especially on this, is better?  To me, that defies logic.  If I were TPL, I'd want this uncertainty removed, and to be able to proclaim victory with the USPTO - THE PATENTS ('148 and '336) ARE VALID!  This is the defendants' nightmare!

c    Given that TPL has the inside track on how the USPTO proceedings are going they can influence the outcome of the meditation to a certain extent and I am positive they are using this tool as skillfully as possible.  What?  I think what you're saying is that our team, having insight into how things are going with the USPTO, will act accordingly in mediation, i.e., if things are going great with the USPTO, be a little less anxious to settle and to press for more $.  And vice versa. Yup!

d    What would you want to do? Try to time the USPTO decision to before or after mediation. I know what I would want to do. Get the USPTO done ASAP, recognizing we have no control of timing.

e    Mediation does not work and its down the “yellow brick road” we go as outlined in #3 above. Actually, as I have opined many times, I strongly suspect that mediation will not work (i.e., no settlement).  Once this is announced, the door is open for our team to file a motion for summary judgment (having done all that requested by the court toward pursuing a cooperative settlement).  The motion will be based on the Markman result (and with a lot of luck, timing wise, positive results from the USPTO).  It is reasonable to expect the Judge to rule in our favor (especially if the Higgins matter, and all the goofy motions from the defendants, have already been ruled out).  Then settlements will be forcoming, and we'll be much more in the driver's seat regarding the dollars.  The proverbial (J's) feet will be held to the fire.

Thanks for all the hard work I continue to see provided on this thread.

Thank you as well.  I'm open to any further discussion/clarification. 

The most positive message to all readers out of all of this, IMO, is that IF mediation efforts fail, it may actually be a good thing (IMO, it absolutely is). 

All JMHOs, and I KNOW nuttin'!

SGE