Bill, Re: Nomai patent threat
Although I respect your analysis, I concluded that Nomai was much more likely than not (3- or 4-1 odds) to prevail on the patent infringement. I think the information contained in the press release is IOM posturing and that, as part of the deal, Nomai was willing to admit in public that it was infringing. Part of what IOM is paying for is this "acknowledgement". Why? To scare off other would-be copiers: if the most aggressive copier "admits" that its product wouldn't stand up in court, maybe Maxell, Sony, Fuji, fill-in-the-blank, shouldn't bother wasting its time.
Why do I think that Nomai was going to prevail? IOM lost almost every round in court. Study the California case docs, and you'll see that the only non-compatibility was in some (not all) notebooks. Look at IOM's website and their explanation doesn't say that other disks don't work, only that IOM does extensive testing of other disks. Also, look at Europe, where Nomai has been available in some capacity-I think I saw somewhere about 500,000 disks. If the Nomai disks destroyed IOM drives, IOM's lawyers would have presented that evidence in California and every other court-and they didn't.
As someone heavily invested in IOM, I am happy to see this issue resolved for all of the above reasons and because, as Sierk said, I'm sure it was extremely distracting to (and caused a great uncertainty for) management. Every trial lawyer knows that no matter how strong your case, once it goes to the jury, anything can happen.
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