Thank you for your civil response to all that. After having "slept on it", I came to the conclusion that your thoughts may have been "this guy's an idiot - he acknowledges ignorance and says he'll listen, but he still isn't hearing me as revealed by his largely unchanged position".
On top of this, there is the settlement value thing, which I suspect has to do with the fundamental question in your mind - "at what point are we a winner?".
So I'm providing the following to hopefully disspell the first thought and to clarify why I still regard us an absolute winner in TX.
The licenses in TX were not a "one time" event. IMO, as long as we came out with at least one patent intact and in an "up" position monetarily out of TX - no matter how small - we won. Why? Because there are 450+ more infringers out there! As long as there is a net $ gain, and the game is still on, we haven't "lost" anything of consequence in the overall scheme of things.
So, with my mindset, the ONLY way we lose is if in one of our "entanglements" the result is that all the patents are rendered invalid. We obviously survived the TX entanglement with the patents intact - the Js licensed all of them. IMO, this is a solid win. And even if we got less monetarily than my "so-so" threshold of $50M to PDS (market perception, or my $100M personal perception), I still don't believe I would consider it a "loss". Again, the door remains open to 450+ more suspected infringers. The only way we lose, IMO, is if that door gets slammed shut.
Our only other current "entanglement" is with the USPTO. The ultimate results won't be known for a very long time, and recognizing "how that game is played", I believe we have a very good chance of prevailing. Through in a bit of my ignorance (which does abound!), and I'd say we have an extremely good chance of prevailing.
Hopefully this amazingly short (LOL) clarification gives you a much better understanding of where I'm coming from, and perhaps some things to consider. We shall see! (LOL)
Thank you again for your patience.
All JMHOs,
SGE