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Technology Stocks : VALENCE TECHNOLOGY (VLNC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (22274)	11/12/2000 4:48:24 PM
From: John Curtis	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 27311

Zeev; Robert, Dennis, et.al.: Hmmm....20 years from filing, or (20 -x) years from issuance? Anyone here a patent attorney? ;-) Anyway, I'll revisit the question with my friend, although I'll admit that though she's an attorney, her specialty to date isn't patent law. It's corporate "stuff." Anyway, from her statement to me it was 20 years from ISSUANCE, which kind'a makes sense. Why should the patentee be held liable for the governments possible slowness in evaluating the underlying merits, eh? As for VLNC hustling half the planet as potential licensees to their processes......well.....the argument is interesting, but doesn't really reflect VLNC's, nor their potential licensees, best interest, does it? What do I mean by this? Well, there's that certain dynamic to be established; by which I mean there's that "sweet spot" that maximized VLNC's cash flow return, and minimizes the total number of licensees such that each licensee has relative assurances that they can continue to sell into a demand market. Bottom line? It does no one any good to flood the market with licensees. VLNC should be all about selecting only a handful of those well-capitalized manufacturers who can assure them product quality, etc., will be maintained. In this fashion VLNC can also maintain fairly firm control of the growth and development of the over-all lith-poly sector through subsequent generations of product. Indeed, if I recall the conference call commentary accurately, of those 15 licensees only a handful were really doing anything with them (5 or 6). And this, along with that European group, may suffice to maximize everyones return. Thinking globally you probably need two manufacturers in Europe; a couple three in Asia, and maybe a floater or two here in the U.S.? This is thinking out loud, and could be way out of line, but still the underlying focus VLNC management should have is to go with key players across the market sector spectrum and not attempt to saturate the market with licensees. They've got at least 15 years left on those patents....I'd like to continue to see management think strategically about these things. As a matter of fact, by faxing the market sector community with their "greetings" letter they may, in effect, be doing this by saying...."Come one, Come ALL! All can submit, but only a few will be chosen....so line up now and let's start talking about mutual profit..." I paraphrase, but some sort of business-speak may be occurring to that effect from now through the next few months. John~