Today's result to me was a foregone conclusion. Two three weeks ago I predicted today's ORDER simply because I knew, DM knew and defense counsel knew that (1) what defense was seeking by their MOTION was to tie DM'S hands before the MARKMAN HEARING was held...

Furthermore, appellate decisions are clear that the right to discovery can not be curtailed on grounds it will be expensive to defendants. The simple retort to such Motions is "they should have thought about it before they started to infringe on plaintiff's Patents.

However, the most important reason for allowing discovery, so long as it remains relevant and is not vexatious, is the simple fact that DISCOVERY is the most important tool of extending the authority of the judicial system to fuction as the arbiters of controversay among the parties in our system of government.

Judges in our system of government do not simply listen to each side of the controversy and then issue a FATWA like it is done in some other countries. They have to make an assessment of "FACTS" independant of the parties and then apply the Statutory and Case Law to those fact to make their Judgement. Thus question the right to DISCOVERY is questioning the authority of the Court and is often summarily denied.

In this Judge Krieger who would be presiding over the Markman Hearing did not bite on the trap defense was laying in this case, namely a "POINT FOR APPEAL" should she RULE for EDIG and DM. She shunted the MOTION to Watanabe closing the door on any dreams by defense team for any appeal on this point.

We should expect some settlements now as the case moses forward toward the Markman Hearing.

Gil...