FWIW, I have considered the recent Supreme Court decision and the possibility that DM/EDIG may choose to publicly file against at least some potential infringers; which led me to believe we could see such a filing at any time (soon). However after reading recent posts from Trillium and LawyerLong and re-examining my thought process, I’ve come to the conclusion that there will most likely NOT be any sort of public filing in the foreseeable future... for the following reasons:

1. This is a fairly recent decision by the Supreme Court. I’m not familiar with the legal profession but in most other professions, major changes tend to take a little time to soak in and become accepted as standard practice. While there may be advantages to filing first and negotiating later, I’m not sure that those advantages (or disadvantages) would be understood well enough by either side to abandon the traditional approach just yet.

2. Despite DM’s perceived reputation and their influence over how best to proceed, it seems to me that EDIG has always been very careful to try and protect its partners and customers - even to the point that others have taken advantage of them in some cases. Given any choice at all, I think they would feel it necessary to negotiate in good faith and try to strike the best deal without causing undue harm (even to an infringing company) so as to protect any future possibilities of doing business with them in the future. EDIG is not one to burn bridges (with the very possible and understandable exception of Digecor/Wencor).

3. The first infringer is probably a soft target - that being a company that is either very clearly infringing, more likely to strike a deal, or in some other way deemed to be a relatively easy win for DM/EDIG. You don’t need to play hardball (file a public lawsuit) when dealing with a soft target.

My opinion is that DM/EDIG should be pretty close to officially contacting someone. The best we can probably hope is to hear by the ASM (in September?) that they ‘have contacted’ some infringer(s), but we will not know any more details until negotiations are complete. Taking 90-120 days to negotiate an agreement would mean that we should still hear something by year-end. The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned but the process will just have to run its course. The first settlement will be extremely important in setting the stage and precedent for whatever comes after. I’d rather they took their time and got it right than try to hurry things through and make a costly mis-calculation.

- Sinkman

P.S. Not to add to the arguing or take sides or anything, but I’ll just weigh in with my thoughts on the recent ‘debates’...

1. Low-hanging fruit is simply that which is lower than the high-hanging fruit. As people are generally much shorter than trees and incapable of flying under their own power, the low-hanging fruit tends to get picked first. It still requires effort, but not near as much as getting at the fruit near the top of the tree. Not every company infringing on EDIG’s patents will be as large as Samsung or Nokia for example. It’s a relative thing, not a yes/no argument.

2. The Mezzo site looks fine to me. I think there should be more information available but I think that about most sites. So it’s black - so what? It’s different. Actually, it reminds me of the movie "Catch Me If You Can" (which I wouldn’t be surprised if it that was on purpose). Anyway, it’s far from the worst I’ve ever seen.