Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from the line of Mark Murphy with Piper Jaffray.
Brian Schwartz - Piper Jaffary
This is Brian Schwartz for Mark Murphy. Don, wanted to dive in your comments, you sound like there is stabilization improvement. I wanted to see if you could comment on the trends of purchase orders that you're seeing from the staffing companies and the consulting companies. Are you seeing any improvement or any interest to increase purchases from that customer base?
Don Volk
None that can point to a trend.
Brian Schwartz - Piper Jaffary
Okay. It looks like the International segment of the business picked up here as a percentage. Wonder if you could comment where the strength was coming from, what type of regions?
Rudy Karsan
The strength is coming primarily from Europe, which makes up 85% to 90% of our international revenues with a little bit of business in the rest of the world. I would say the rest of the world makes up less than $1 million, less than 2% of our revenue base.
Brian Schwartz - Piper Jaffary
Great. Don I wanted also just touch in on the gross margins here. We've had a couple of quarters now of improvement. Do you think that that has pretty much bottomed here a couple of quarters ago and there's still some leverage on that line here, as we move into [2010]?
Don Volk
Well, one of the reasons that our gross margin improved in the third quarter was because we reached more than minimums on some of our RPO contracts. Those reward fees have high gross margins. So that contributed to most of the improvement to 67.
Brian Schwartz - Piper Jaffary
Okay. Then last question for me here. The patent case that's going on here and the additional legal expense here, Rudy, can you give us any more color possibly on the time length that you think that this may go ongoing? Possibly why you think that you have a strong case here? That's all I have. Thanks.
Rudy Karsan
When you're looking at legal matters, the timeline is we just really don't know. It can take a quarter; it can take four quarters; it can take two quarters; we just don't know. As far as the level of conviction that we have, I guess the level of conviction is given by the fact that we're willing to invest the dollars. Then we basically have a policy in terms of, we don't really comment on the validity of the case while it's ongoing. Just so from an internal perspective we don't kind of discuss any legal issues.
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