Will Apple fight or settle?

Good question for speculation. The PTSC story seems to be totaly driven by the TPL research & reverse engineering team combined with a very solid presentation on where the Moore portfolio has been used. That would seem to be the core needed to get some fairly heavy weight companies / brands to settle early. My guess is the Creative folks have similar in-house or out sourced research. If compelling, AAPL`s BOD will want to settle and move forward as they don`t need the bad news on the street for an extended period of time and they currently have cash (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AAPL).

How long will the portable music player be a viable CE product as a stand alone? Will AAPL come out with their own cell/DMP/TV convergent product? They have done a good job of hangin` on, but innovation is needed to remain at the top of the heap. All of these questions are probably part of the total package needed to decide if a fight is worth the cost in legal fees + executive`s time (the larger portion of a nasty suit).

Of course, AAPL could just buy Creative or send Vito to remind Creative management about that swimmin` with da fishes thing.

John