Just as bad was his speaking style and demeanor. He talked very loudly, almost angrily. Sarcasm dripped from his mouth on about every point he tried to make. He made a series of sarcastic comments about file sizes, transmission speeds, types of peripherals, and bandwidth of communications links available in 1988, etc., and each time he attempted to ridicule the feasibility of the Burst patents. He walked right up to the point of becoming argumentative, and violating the philosophy of the tutorial section of the Markman hearing. J. Patel hardly asked him a question, except the one Joe mentioned in his post -- "Can you show me where "time compression" is found in the Burst patents?" It WAS a rehash of the Apple brief -- which is argumentative by design!

I'm really not trying to be unfair to Apple on purpose, folks! But these guys are not winning many friends in the courtroom! J. Patel specifically asked for the best effort to be made to educate her on the technology. She made that clear in the second case management conference. Parker Folse told her he had an expert witness that his firm as used many times -- "She's excellent in explaining complex technology." And J. Patel said, "Great! I NEED a good education in this technology. That's good to know." -- And what did she get? From Apple: a pitiful "expert" who does not testify, and a lead attorney who gives a sloppy presentation of the technology that is not useful. And a witness who cannot be questioned by the judge, should she have some questions, and I'm sure she DID have some, or many. But since Powers, himself, did the presentation, she didn't get an opportunity to have this technology explained to her in a fashion that she could actually get a good grounding in it, and from that perspective, to be able to ask intelligent questions of the expert. Then too, she knew that Powers really IS NOT AN EXPERT in technology, and she probably wonders how well he really understands it himself. So why bother and ask him technical questions, anyway? This whole thing seemed to me to be highly unorthodox, nonstandard, and totally screwed up!

I attended another Markman last year in the Forgent case. Dr. Hemami was on one side, and another computer scientist on the other. Both had Ph.D.'s. And the two scientists themselves, gave the complete presentation. That would seem to be the way it is normally done. But there is nothing normal or standard about this case. Including a plaintiff that hits the defense with motions for summary judgment at the last moment, right before the Markman hearing. Also, that same plaintiff is "papering to death" the other side, and the court, with argument after argument that appears to be for one purpose only -- to argue! A lot of sound and flurry, but little light being cast on the issues before this court. Or as BurstingSquidoo would say, a lot of mayonnaise! If this strategy is designed to win the court's confidence and favor, it sure is failing.

Matthew Powers, IMO, has one more, last, good shot at landing a body blow to Burst, and that is next Thursday. Are his arguments honed? Is he ready? Is he confident? I can't answer "yes" to any of those questions.

I only know one thing: HE'S ANGRY! But he had better be PREPARED too! We could observe Dr. Hemami and Mike Heim taking lots of notes on "Mad-Man" Powers' presentation today. You can bet the Burst side will be ready for Powers' arguments next week. We know the Apple battle plan. It's all written out. Now we'll see who has the greatest forces and strength. This is the battle field: