"The development of new innovative products requires knowledge of and reliance on prior innovation, thereby increasing the likelihood of so-called blocking patents or patents that are at least commercially desirable to incorporate into future products. Moreover, the increasingly multifaceted nature of technology products contributes to the likelihood of competing and complementary patent interests. Thus, a company may need access to multiple patents in order to create a single, useful product. Often, a company obtains rights to the prior technologies to better manage the risk of patent infringement claims."

"For example, an enterprise may find that its efforts to create a single, useful product may implicate claims made in multiple patents held by its competitors; the competitors likewise may find that their efforts to make their own competitive products implicate claims made in the patents held by the enterprise. In such cases, the enterprise and its competitors may enter into CLAs to avoid the risks of costly, uncertain, and potentially debilitating patent litigation. In this context, CLAs do not involve the transfer of ownership in the IP, which would include a transfer of the right to exclude others from using the IP--substantially more than just the right not to be sued. As previously explained, CLAs are typically non-exclusive agreements and parties may, and often do, enter into CLAs with multiple parties with respect to the same IP."

"Many technology-based products are extremely complex, and it is difficult for a company to operate without concern that it may infringe on another company's patents. This is particularly true when all the companies must adhere to some acceptable technology standard, while holding hundreds or thousands of patents and continually developing new technology. Standards-setting bodies typically require that participants license certain patents--which the participant declares to be essential to the standards adopted by the body--to others before including the technology in the standard."

Someone asked earlier if EDIG was acquired, would the CLAs be transferred? IMO, I doubt it matters who the controlling shareholder is (now or in the future...hmmmm) the CLAs WILL stay intact.

This, once again, reminds me of one of my earlier posts regarding the value of the CLAs:

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(quoted from another member's post here) "Some posters believe we make $ on cross-licensing. My understanding is we make money selling gadgets or licensing our patented technology. Cross-licensing doesn't provide a revenue stream unless we sell product that uses LG/Casio technology. The only benefit of a cross-license right now is we won't have to pay a license fee for using LG or Casio patented technology which, if we have been using any up to this point, I can't see where we've paid a fee to use it."

(my reply) Let's say the "cross-licenses" (the ability to use, oh, let's assume 100+ other company's current relevant patents in all of EDIG's future tech) is one of the significant 'value enhancers' of the company.

THAT IS, THE ABILITY FOR WHOEVER DECIDES TO BUY EDIG OUT IN THE FUTURE WILL DO SO FOR ITS CROSS-LICENSED (ACQUIRED) IP PORTFOLIO.

Can you think of anyone that may, in the future, want to buy a single company that has the ability to use patents from 100 (or more) of the largest technology companies in the world ..all for one price and in one bid?

If that isn't worth 100+ TIMES today's price of admission, I don't know what is.

How many more cross-licenses will be attached to each EDIG share?

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I know, maybe I just like to hear myself talk, but once the CLA is part of the company, whoever owns the controlling interest in shares at the end of the day owns all the rights to the CLAs as beneficial holders of the company.

How much will that be worth to someone in the future? Perhaps there is no need to acquire EDIG now since DM is already doing the legal work, and, although an acquiring company might possibly be able to place a bid for EDIG now at a much cheaper price, it makes more sense to have the legal issues taken care of by a third party (instead of by in-house counsel) saving significant costs and risks to the (future assumed) acquiring company's IP portfolio, in the event of a lost case sometime while the current process occurs. In otherwords, XXX has many patents of their own, but if XXX made a successful bid for EDIG now, and pursued an additional case which has not been filed as owners of the EDIG patents, then XXX IP could be at risk as part of a future CLA, even if XXX did eventually win / settle. Perhaps XXX has already considered this, and feels that keeping their IP portfolio out of a CLA is worth waiting until DM picks up a few other portfolios along the way, and is worth paying a higher premium for EDIG.

After reading that article, (thanks again sman) I believe more so that the CLAs are only the tip of the iceberg, or more aptly, the keys to the kingdom.