Hi everyone,

I went to the conference today and took notes. I can't gaurantee that it is all acurate but I took notes and this is what I have:

When I arrived they were doing a role call to be sure everyone was present. DMX? was the only defendant who was not in the courtroom or on the phone. There were 6 or 7 lawyers for the defendants in the jury box and 2 at the table and several were on the phone. At the plaintiff’s table there was only one lawyer.I couldn’t tell who he represented but I thought I heard him say he was from Faegre and Benson.The main attorney for edig was on the phone.(Youngwirth?)

They spoke about the only motion pending before the court which I believe was a motion to compel discovery from Sykar (sp?).Judge Wantanabe said he had already ruled on that and that Sykar had until Dec. 27th (maybe the 21st?) to respond.Since it is not yet the 27th of December, Sykar is still within the timeframe already ordered.

Judge asked for a status report.Youngwirth (?) edig attorney on the phone said that they were engaging in discovery with all the defendants.They are in a “meet and confer process with almost all of the defendants.”Judge asked if we were on schedule for the Markman as set and edig attorney said simply, yes.

The attorney who seemed to be the lead for the defendants (maybe Cohen?) added that they had also asked for discovery from edig and hoped that they would be able to come to an agreement without the court’s involvement. (In my opinioin this was a bit of gamesmanship so they can say to the judge later that the plainfiff is the party who is holding up discovery.After Cohen was done speaking her turned to the attorney next to him and shrugged as if to say “it was worth a try to get that in there.”)

The judge asked a question about the “claims construction” process and if they had come to any agreement on it.The plaintiff’s attorney (Youngwirth?) asked if the judge was referencing some sort of “appeals” aspect that had been discussed in an earlier proceeding.I did not really understand this part but Youngwirth stated that they had “discussed this issue with the defendants but had not been able to reach a resolution.”

At this point the judge seemed ready to be done with the status conference and asked if there were any other issues to be dealt with.Youngwirth asked if the judge had the “proposed case management” schedule in front of him.The judge said no he did not.Youngwirth pushed a bit and said it looked like there were some problems.He said that the defendants are asking the plaintiff to share in the cost of e-discovery and noted that the defendants must show that the discovery is causing an “undue burden” which they have not shown.He continued to say that sharing the cost of e-discovery was brought up for the first time in the draft of the case management schedule and that the plaintiff is objecting to sharing the cost.One of the defendant’s lawyer (Cohen?) said that they disagreed with the plaintiff on this point but that he believed that the judge did not want to hear arguments on this.(This was clearly the case based on body language and tone from the judge).

They concluded and left.As the defendant’s lawyers left they were talking softly and the only thing I could hear was from one attorney who said, “That was a huge waste of time.”I tend to agree with that assessment as some of the attorneys had flown in from Chicago and Texas etc. just to say that things were on track.

I am not an attorney although my brother and father are attorneys in Denver.This makes me dangerously close to understanding lots of legal stuff without actually understanding lots of legal stuff so take it for what it is worth.