RE:RE:Wilan/MSFT joint notice of settlement agreementI've learned to not get over excited about patent litigation Chi, but this shoudl be positive for QTRH.
However, there are only 2 facts that can be confirmed at this point: - A jury has awarded Wilan US $242M from Microsoft for infringment
- Microsoft will not continue with appeals when this agreement is finalized
In addition, Wilan has asked for pre and post interest, which at the statutory rates, if applied in full, would be about US $100M. Also, Wilan has asked the court for reasonable legal fees. Both these requests are before the court, but with this agreement court deadlines are now is paused for 30 days to allow for a final agreement to be filed with the court. Unless the jury verdict is set aside, it is probable that the court would grant fees and interest, as Wilan has requested. However, that is specualtion at this point.
We don't know the leverage points or the extent of any offer by either party, but it is likely that Wilan may have offered some kind of discount to Microsoft in order to get a check in the door. Any benefit to QTRH won't come until Q3, earliest. Just to refresh memory for the board, QTRH has ~C$38M still on the table from the Wilan sale and gets 10% of distributions as long as it retains its equity position. (read the Wilan Sale NR here: https://ir.quarterhill.com/news/news-details/2023/Quarterhill-Announces-the-Sale-of-Wi-LAN-Inc/default.aspx).
Based on contingency agreements it is probable that any amount would be shared 3 ways between Wilan, SRI and legal counsel. If all chickens come home to roost, the upper limit to be split is about US $350M.
A tidbit from the past - I came across an interesting claim in IP-Fray when loooking up this case this morning regarding Microsoft meddling in Wilan affairs during the ill fated Mosaid hostile bid in 2011. The year that Siri launched (2011) was also a year in which Canadian patent licensing firm WiLAN and Microsoft had a “clash” of a different kind: WiLAN was trying a hostile takeover of another patent licensing firm, Mosaid (later known as Conversant, and now again named Mosaid), but Microsoft engaged as a patent litigation funder (possibly for the only time in its history), enabling a three-way deal with Nokia and Mosaid under which Mosaid obtained a bunch of Nokia patents and went out to sue particularly Android device makers. That deal enabled Mosaid to fend off WiLAN’s hostile takeover bid.