Sometimes in the ongoing licensing/litigation/USPTO battles, I lose focus on items that when I stop to think about them, surely seem VERY interesting.

For example:

Fujitsu, prior to resolution of any litigation, early in a licensing process where it was truly a David vs. Goliath atmosphere, decided that it would be prudent and financially ecomical to settle for a "MERE" $31.6M.  Similarly HP signed for $26.4M.

Now in Fujitsu's case, I can understand as they were being sued.  They thought, hey, let's get, while the gettin's good, and in their finite wisdome, they thought $31.6M was a great deal!  When you stop and think about that, if that's a good deal, then that bodes very very well for future licensing.

In HP's case, they weren't being sued.  They could easily have continued to negotiate, and to postpone, and wait it out until the last possible moment, and perhaps signed for slightly more or slightly less, who knows.  But AGAIN, they considered $26.4 to be a good enough deal to make the issue go away.

I wish we could say the same for the Sony deal, but unfortunately we can't.  But when you put those "discounted" deals into perspective, and really consider the amounts involved, and then you consider the concept that these patents apply to almost EVERYTHING, it's hard not to get pretty excited about the future prospects in the event of a settlement or jury trial win.