I’m betting it will be full-on discovery after this Friday. My understanding is:

1. Defendants were seeking to eliminate or minimize discovery until after Markman.

2. Plaintiff floated the two-phase approach idea to appease the court and attempt to streamline the process.

3. The discovery cut-off for claim construction issues was June 4, 2010. (Doc 262 - Page 11)

4. Markman date has now been set and plaintiff asked to be relieved from the stay on further discovery.

5. The court granted plaintiff’s request if after 21 days they could not reach "an agreement with regard to how they might take an appeal from a construction determination" (whatever the heck that means).

My thought is that we should want full discovery to proceed. There has been no indication that DM got any answers to its questions (Doc292 - ExhibitC). That seemed to stop the defendants dead in their tracks, but they should no longer be able to ignore these issues now that Markman is set and once the discovery stay is lifted. I think that one way or another, real money is going to start flowing out of the defendant’s pockets... as it should.

- Sinkman