Are you suggesting Vivitar is a strategy to penetrate the Texas Instrument veil or did I miss your point?

Pure specualtion, but that would be one way to skin the Big Dawg without feeling his teeth so soon.

Those Big Dawgs are going to have Big Dawg legal teams and lots of 'em. My guess is DM is prepared for that, but getting one "low hanging" piece of fruit might help push negotiations along the fast track. I have to believe DM does not want to stick their finger in any Big Dawg's eye just yet.

Option A; A trial means lots of non-billable hours = bad thing.

Option B; A negotiation means good food, great wine, and a few really nice golf courses = good thing.

Down the road, we may need to break out the XXL can-o-whoop-arse, but which one makes sense today?

John