Exactly right I think - and doni said it much more succinctly than I’m about to...

Simply looking at it from DM’s point of view and assuming it’s all about the money (big surprise), I’d guess that Vivitar may have been selected because they judged it to be the shortest path toward getting actual dollars - ostensibly because this particular case was thought to be relatively strong. Further, it may be that the amount of infringement (and therefore its value) is relatively small - such that DM might expect to settle for what Vivitar would think is a reasonable amount versus their cost to defend assuming they could be convinced that their risk of losing the case was high.

It’s been discussed before that whatever might come from Vivitar will probably be small - like one or two million or perhaps even less. The point is that it may make good financial sense for DM to position themselves for a quick win via settlement in order to help pay their own costs going forward. We know that DM is fronting costs and working on contingency but it doesn’t make sense for them to do this for years when they don’t have to. If they can work toward a quick settlement with Vivitar for say, two million, they would probably receive at least half of that (40% plus costs) which would allow them to recover most if not all of their expenses and maybe have a little house (that is, Vivitar's) money left to use in going forward.

As I’ve been paying more attention to PTSC of late, I realized that EDIG/DM no doubt needs its own "early licensees" to continue moving forward. If I’m right, then I would hope that a settlement could be reached before EDIG’s fiscal year-end (3/31/08). By that time I hope also that DM will have filed against multiple other companies.

- Sinkman