Many thanks to vasco_bill for his excellent series of posts on his observations at the Markman tutorial last Thursday. I suffer from an over active imagination and it is very beneficial to have someone like vasco_bill and Cousin Bill confirm what I saw.

I very much agree with vasco_bill that Dr. Hemami did an excellent job in her presentation. I would grade her presentation A+/B+. She gets an A+ on the technical expertise she used in her presentation. There is NOBODY on this planet better qualified to discuss the issues of importance in the Burst patents. She only gets a B+ because there is no way anybody could teach the complex issues in the patents in 90 minutes. Even teresadactyl couldn't do it in 90 minutes. Dr. Hemami came close, but still only a B+. Judge Patel's questions prolonged her presentation and she had to rush through the last 15 minutes. The good news is that all of Dr. Hemami's presentation was in a notebook given to Judge Patel along with a DVD that contained audio/video samples that we did not have time to see during the tutorial.

From where I was sitting (behind the Burst legal team) it sure seemed like the Burst side far outnumbered the Apple side. I was also seated behind Richard Lang and I pondered what must be going through his head as he saw his work of almost 20 years being played out in a federal courtroom. All the ups and downs he had faced in these years was working its way to a resolution.

This would make a good scene in a Hollywood movie where Burst flashbacks are superimposed over the proceedings going on in the courtroom: the initial patent grant and the excitement, the Frank Levinson demo box which demonstrated that the ideas in the patent worked, CES 1991, Apple meetings, U2 getting involved, stock price hitting almost $20, opening offices around the country, MSFT meetings, stock price dropping to $.03, laying off close to 100 employees and then just two guys working out of small office in Santa Rosa for years preparing for this moment in time.

vasco_bill has described Mr. Powers presentation as being aggressive and I would agree with his description. I would add that he was like a "bull in a china closet" as he bombarded the courtroom with slide after slide in his Powerpoint presentation. I would describe Matthew Powers as being from the "junkyard dog" school of lawyering. I actually favor this kind of lawyer because in my limited legal experience, aggressiveness and passion are important qualities to look for in an attorney. It would seem to me that Apple has chosen Powers because if the facts are not on your side you need someone that can put on a show that makes it seem like the facts are on your side. Someone that specializes in smoke, mirrors and mayonnaise. This probably does not go over very well in front of a federal court judge but it may be more effective in front of a jury.

Even his Powerpoint presentation was not very effective. Many Powerpoint presentations are not very good because they tend to be just words that are then read by the presenter. Many of the slides were taken directly from the Apple briefs with yellow highlights of the words Powers wanted to emphasize.

Judge Patel had already seen these words because it was clear to me that she was very familiar with this case. At the very end of the tutorial Judge Patel asked Parker Folse if all the disputed terms had been reconciled into one list that remained to be construed. She said she was asking this question because she had noted in her copy of the Burst brief there were terms that did not appear on the reconciled list. The said to me she is paying VERY CLOSE attention to the details in this case. Folse answered that indeed the reconciled list did not contain all of the terms in the original brief because Apple and Burst had come to an agreement on the meaning of these terms (like monitor etc.).