From Ron on the Yahoo board...

........."I would offer correction to the portion of Ease's Agora post
concerning the Markman rulings as between Fogel and Ward. In
actuality, federal court judges are not bound by each others' rulings,
and, as a further result of that, there would be no appellate issue
presented if the two come out differently. Fogel MAY indeed give
deference to Ward's opinion (called "persuasive authority" in legal
terms), but he is NOT required to accept it --- and if he does not,
the appellate court will not recognize the conflict, because different
judges can validly come to different conclusions.

The above would not necessarily keep TPL from asserting in appellate
briefs, should an appeal be taken at some point, that Ward was right,
but unless the higher court saw clear error in Fogel's opinion, it
will stand --- in other words, the issue is not who had the better
opinion, it is whether the opinion under appellate review is clearly
wrong. A rough (very) analogy would be the review of calls by the refs
during a football game --- unless the review shows that the call on
the field was clearly wrong, it cannot be overturned.

Also, rulings of the court are not evidence, and cannot be given to
the jury for use in their deliberations. There may be formal
instructions given to the jury that contain portions of the language
of the applicable Markman ruling, but the ruling itself is not
admissible --- this is an additional reason why, if the cases stay in
CA, the jury will never see the Markman ruling from Ward. If Fogel
ever issues a Markman ruling and the cases stay in CA, the jury will
hear only Fogel's language as used in his Markman opinion.

I am not trying to be unduly technical about all of this --- but
on the other hand, I didn't want anyone thinking that, just because
there is a prior Markman ruling in place from Ward, there is
necessarily a likelihood of the CA cases being transferred back to
Texas. Such a transfer may happen, but if it does, it won't be
because Fogel feels "pressured" by the existing Markman ruling in the
EDoT.

Thanks again, Ease, for your Agora post yesterday, and for the others
you have made in this forum today. Best wishes to all."