Easy,

This is all speculation and is only my opinion.

The 336 has stood up to numerous exams but is now facing another question of its validity at the uspto. I think most of us are confident that it will be upheld and hopefully with forceful enought language to prevent any future challenges. But we dont KNOW that and more importantly the companies that are infringing the patent dont know either.

Ive mentioned this before and again this is only my opinion but I cant see why a company would pay money to license a patent that is currently being challenged. Another company is paying for the legal challenge so its effectively costing them nothing to wait. If uspto declares the 336 invalid they owe nothing. If it is upheld then they can negotiate a fee. The ony reason I can see why a company would license is that a. They are next to certain the patent will be upheld and b. They can get a much better deal now than they could in the future.

I believe that if the 336 is upheld with strong enough language the situation between ptsc and tpl will be quickly resolved and we should be able to proceed with licensing

I also think it will be difficult and costly for a company to try to challenge the validity of the 336 in court. What argument could they bring? "Well we know that the uspto has upheld this patent on several occasions and over 60 companies have signed a licensing agreements but we dont think we have to cuz..."

Anyway just conjecture but thats why I think the environment will be much different if the 336 is finally and "finally" validated

GLTAL