Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) We’ll go to Jeff Schreiner of CapStone Investments.
Jeff Schreiner - CapStone Investments
Hello everyone, thank you very much for taking my questions today. I’ve been bouncing in between two calls here, so I apologize if I repeat anything. The first question I want to pose Tom was to you about, could you give us some sense about historically in that type of context, has it been favorable to have the ITC staff support your position?
Tom Lavelle
It never hurts to have the staff support the position, although I went to extreme means to point out that it’s really the ALJ, Judge Essex, whose decision matters. It’s kind of a mixed bag. It’s good to have them on your side, but that doesn’t mean you are going to win. The other side is, there are three patents that we believe are valid and infringed that they are recommending, they deny validity to which we disagree with. So we’re not fully in sync with what the staff is saying, at least with respect to those other issues.
Harold Hughes
You should add that those patents are still in the San Francisco patent case.
Tom Lavelle
Yes, all five of those patents are also in the Northern District of California case, which also includes Farmwald/Horowitz patents over and above these five patents as well.
Jeff Schreiner - CapStone Investments
I was wondering, I heard that you said you were pleased about possibly having these guilty pleas into the trial with Samsung and Hynix. How significant is it to have the Samsung and Hynix DOJ guilty pleas in the trial, and to counter that, how significant is it that Micron’s agreement leniency isn’t in the trial?
Tom Lavelle
I think that will be a question for the jury to decide, if I can speculate, but I think it’s important to get the guilty pleas in. The case and the facts, if you just looked at them in a vacuum, a lot of people might say ?Wait a minute, that’s kind of crazy. You’re talking about a conspiracy here among large companies.?
Having the guilty pleas gives credence to the basic fundamental point of view that there is a conspiracy here, because they’re convicted of a criminal conspiracy. So I think it’s important. I don’t by any means think it’s the only or even necessarily the most significant evidence that will be presented, but it gives a lot of credence to the basic theory of our case, so we’re very pleased we got it in.
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