Nokia Corporation v. Apple Inc.

Filing 55

Official Transcript of Teleconference held on 06 03 10 before Judge Sleet. Court Reporter/Transcriber Maurer. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter/Transcriber before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained through PACER. Redaction Request due 6/28/2010. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 7/8/2010. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 9/7/2010. (kjm)

Nokia Corporation v. Apple Inc.

Doc. 5

1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 v. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 APPEARANCES: JACK B. BLUMENFELD, ESQ. Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell LLP -andPATRICK J. FLINN, ESQ., and MARK A. McCARTY, ESQ. Alston & Bird (Atlanta, GA) Counsel for Nokia --Wilmington, Delaware Thursday, June 3, 2010 10:00 a.m. Teleconference --NOKIA CORPORATION and NOKIA, INC., CounterclaimDefendants. APPLE INC., CounterclaimPlaintiff, v. APPLE INC., Defendant. IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT IN AND FOR THE DISTRICT OF DELAWARE --NOKIA CORPORATION, Plaintiff, ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) Civil Action

No. 09-791-GMS

Dockets.Justia.com

2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 THE COURT: Good afternoon, counsel DAVID E. MOORE, ESQ. Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP -andWILLIAM F. LEE, ESQ., and MICHELLE D. MILLER, ESQ. (Boston, MA) Counsel for Apple APPEARANCES CONTINUED:

(Counsel respond "Good afternoon.") THE COURT: Counsel, could we do a roll call for

the record, beginning with plaintiff? MR. BLUMENFELD: Your Honor, this is Jack

Blumenfeld for the Nokia parties, along with Patrick Flinn and Mark McCarty from Alston & Bird. THE COURT: MR. FLINN: MR. MOORE: Good afternoon. Good afternoon. On behalf of the defendant Apple, With me on

Your Honor, it is Dave Moore at Potter Anderson.

the line are Bill Lee and Michelle Miller from WilmerHale. THE COURT: MR. LEE: THE COURT: Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Counsel, as you know, I had previous

plans to have you come back, I think, but in the press of business and just scheduling challenges, I thought it better

3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DI-25. The Court will deny without comment Nokia's motion with respect to Counts I, II, IV, V, and VI - the breach of contract, promissory estoppel, and declaratory to proceed in the manner I am about to, via the vehicle of teleconference. I want to do two things today. I am going to announce my decision regarding Nokia's motion docketed at Item 25 to dismiss. to read the ruling into the record. I am going

I will endeavor at some

point to memorialize this, but don't hold your breath while that is happening. But we are on the record. I will go into some

detail, not perhaps as much as I will if I am able to issue a more formal ruling in writing. Then I am going to want to revisit the schedule that has been entered upon in this case, to discuss a fairly discrete issue, that is, the positioning and treatment, or perhaps repositioning and treatment of the contract versus the patent issues in the case. So, counsel, I will now rule on Nokia's motion to dismiss Apple's nonpatent counterclaims (Counts I through VI) for failure to state a claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. For the record, this motion is docketed as

4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 relief claims. The Court will also deny Nokia's motion to dismiss Apple's Count III, an antitrust claim for monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act. Given that the overwhelming majority of the parties' briefs were devoted to this monopolization claim, the Court will now take a few moments to state its reasoning. Both parties discuss at some length the Third Circuit's decision in Broadcom v. Qualcomm. Broadcom

provides in clear terms the general framework under which courts should analyze a motion to dismiss a claim brought under Section 2 of the Sherman Act where the claimant is alleging that the defendant engaged in anticompetitive conduct during a standards-setting possess. Specifically,

the Court in Broadcom held that the following elements, if established, are sufficient to state a monopolization claim under Section 2: (1) in a consensus-oriented private standardsetting environment, (2) a patentholder's intentionally false promise to license essential proprietary technology on FRAND terms, (3) coupled with an SSO's -- standard-setting organization's -reliance on that promise when including the technology in a standard and (4) the patentholder's subsequent

5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 breach of that promise is actionable anticompetitive conduct. Apple will ultimately have to establish each of the four elements listed in Broadcom in order to prevail on its monopolization claim. At the stage in the proceedings,

however, the question is not whether Apple has shown enough to prevail on this claim, but, rather, whether its counterclaim complaint sufficiently pleads this claim. While the Supreme Court's rulings in Twombly and Iqbal raised the bar for surviving a motion to dismiss somewhat, federal courts still operate under a notice pleading system. Under Twombly and Iqbal, as long as the

plaintiff alleges enough facts to make his or her claim plausible on its face, a motion to dismiss must be denied. Put another way, and this is a quote from Iqbal: "A claim has facial plausibility when the pleaded factual content allows the Court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Apple's counterclaim complaint easily passes this test with respect to the monopolization claim. argues that the allegations in Apple's complaint are "conclusory" and "inconsistent." The Court does not agree. Nokia

Numerous paragraphs in the counterclaims plead facts that if proven would support a finding that Nokia violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act. For instance, Paragraph 53 of the

6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 counterclaims state that, "In order to ensure incorporation into the standard and to avoid the SSO's consideration of the cost of standardizing patent technology, Nokia deliberately and deceptively did not disclose during the standard-setting-process IPR [intellectual property rights] that it now claims are essential to the standard. In fact, in many cases, a named inventor on the concealed patent application participated in the relevant working group and championed Nokia's technical proposal. Nokia

disclosed its IPR only after the relevant standard was finalized." In other paragraphs, Apple alleges specific disclosures and nondisclosures that Nokia made during the standards-setting possess and the commitments Nokia made to license its technologies on RAND or FRAND terms. In

Paragraph 71, 72, 83 and 84, among others, Apple alleges that it relied on Nokia's FRAND and RAND commitments. Later

paragraphs in the complaint detail the ways in which Nokia allegedly broke its promise to license its technologies. For instance, Paragraphs 88 and 89 allege that Nokia demanded cross-licensing of a number of Apple patents that Apple alleges were not standards-essential. Paragraphs 90

and 91 allege that Nokia demanded excessive royalties, specifically, royalties that were approximately three times as much as earlier proposed royalties. These are just a few

7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 examples of specific factual allegations in the complaint that support a plausible claim for monopolization. It is true that it might have been possible for Apple to be even more specific in its complaint. Apple did

not, for instance, allege the specific dollar amounts and royalties that Nokia demanded. Apple did not specify the

exact patents to which Nokia demanded licenses and why those patents were not standard-essential. But neither the Third

Circuit nor the Supreme Court require such specificity at the pleading stage. It is always possible for a complaint,

it seems to me, to be more specific or extensive in specifying the conduct allegedly giving rise to a claim. The mere fact that greater specificity is possible does not, however, render a complaint insufficient. The facts alleged

in Apple's counterclaims are sufficient to create a reasonable inference that Nokia engaged in conduct that violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act. required to survive a motion to dismiss. As to Nokia's allegation that Apple was "inconsistent" in its assertions regarding whether the ten Nokia asserted patents were essential, the Court agrees with Apple that this misapprehends the legitimate practice of alternative meaning. Nokia's complaint repeatedly asserts As Apple correctly That is all that is

that the asserted patents are essential.

asserts in its brief, "Apple is entitled to premise its

8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 counterclaims on those allegations and to argue, in the alternative, that if the patents are essential, Nokia wrongfully acquired and abused its monopoly power in the markets for the technologies covered by the patents." In short, Apple's counterclaims allege facts sufficient to support a plausible claim for monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act. For the reasons stated, the Court will deny Nokia's motion to dismiss. That is the Court's ruling, counsel. That leaves, then, in my view -- and I am willing to discuss this with a somewhat open mind -- the possible need to revisit the ordering of things. We

discussed this extensively at our first visit, at the scheduling conference. Who wants to go first? MR. LEE: THE COURT: Your Honor, it's Bill Lee. Mr. Lee, I might have known you

would jump into the breach right away. MR. LEE: I apologize. I missed the conference

at which Mr. Quarles appeared because I was in trial before Judge Bonares (phonetic). I think Mr. Quarles at least reported to me he argued extensively but unsuccessfully to have the contract claims litigated first. Without being redundant, I would

9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 say that we still think that is the right way to do it. We

actually think if there were discovery and a trial on the contract claims, that that actually may be the most likely mechanism to resolve all of the patent claims before Your Honor. There are now two competing cases of Internet and Nokia started another patent case against

Trade Commission.

Apple in the Western District of Wisconsin. I think -- and I know Mr. Flinn may disagree -but I think that if we could litigate the contract claim, which is, there is a contract, there is a license, has there been a breach because the offer is not FRAND, has the best chance of getting the parties to ultimate resolution. The only other point I will make, Your Honor, is that it really would avoid a lot of duplication and a lot of extra effort if we can litigate the contract claims first. If it can resolve the case, there will never be the

need to impose upon, frankly, the Court's resources to decide ten patents, nor will the parties have to litigate ten patents. And these ten patents are just ten of

thousands that might be litigated, which I think no one hopes will happen. The contract claim and the resolution of

that has the prospect of resolving the dispute as to all of them. THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Lee.

Who would care to respond on behalf of Nokia?

10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. FLINN: Good afternoon, Your Honor. This is

Patrick Flinn from Alston & Bird. THE COURT: MR. FLINN: Good afternoon. Good afternoon. We did miss

It is nice to have Mr. Lee with us. him the last time we were in Delaware.

But let me say that beyond Mr. Lee's presence, nothing really has changed from the schedule that the Court set in our prior meeting. The schedule was set with the

assumption that the nonpatent claims would, in fact, be in the case. And the fact that they are now confirmed to be in

the case I don't think causes much reason to revisit the schedule. And I do have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Lee's suggestion that somehow litigating ten patents is simpler than litigating the contract FRAND issue, because that is going to require determining the fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory rates for not ten patents but for the several hundred patents that are in Nokia's portfolio. The license dispute that gives rise to Apple's breach of contract claim is one that is not limited to the ten patents that are the subject of Nokia's original infringement claims that started this litigation. The contract claims broadly and significantly opened the scope of the case from the simple ten patent

11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 infringement claims that were originally brought. So I don't think that it is going to be any simpler to do the contract case first. It is going to be

much more significant to have to deal with the entire portfolio and structure it that way. The only other fact that I think counsel -another fact that I believe counsel is against changing the schedule that had been previously agreed is that now that the pleadings on the counterclaim have been resolved and we know what is at stake, Nokia will have to look at what nonpatent claims it wants to bring, and their schedule permits amendment, the commonplace amendment of Nokia's pleadings in light of the presence of the nonpatent claims in here. So it is possible -- and it hasn't been confirmed -- but it is possible that there will be nonpatent claims, including contract claims, that Nokia will assert, that will further make it more complicated to adjudicate them first. So I think, in summary, our view is that the circumstances and structure of this case remains unchanged, notwithstanding the Court's ruling, and if anything, the reasons for the Court doing the patent issues first, as of right now the simplest issues if the case, I think, remain the persuasive ones.

12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 THE COURT: Mr. Flinn -- I know we talked about I will give Mr. Lee a chance to

this at the 16 conference.

respond -- but could you revisit the point that was made I think in the joint status report, where I think it was -and I haven't had a chance to review it comprehensively -there was mention made of a similar case and an approach taken by another District Judge wherein the contract matter was positioned first and it resulted in a relatively prompt resolution of the action. way of settlement or not. MR. FLINN: Samsung/Ericsson case. That was, I believe, the I think it was significantly I am just not sure if it was by

different factually and procedurally from the situation we are in right now. And it did not involve the situation

where we have a lawsuit started simply on the infringement of ten patents and then the defendant wanting to change the subject to talk about what the value of an entire portfolio of several hundred patents is worth and wanting that resolved first. The fact is that the ten patents are the only patents that Nokia seeks to litigate in this case at this point. And to the extent that we are going to add anything

else, it will be noncontract claims, and possibly even an explicit breach of contract against Apple. Now that Apple

has pled the existence of the contract, we believe that it

13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 is correct. has contractual obligations that it has not fulfilled. that again is likely to a much broader, more factually complex case than ours. THE COURT: Thank you. But

Mr. Lee, could you address in reverse order the assertion just made by Mr. Flinn that if Nokia elects to amend, seeks to amend, and brings in its own claims of breach of contract or failure to follow FRAND, that it will at least potentially significantly complicate matters, and then move on. MR. LEE: Yes. Your Honor, I don't think that

I am not quite sure what the claim is going to But I can say these

be from them on our breach of contract. two things on that for sure.

One is, Your Honor, if we breach the contract to them and they breach the contract to us, or there is allegations of that, they are all arising from the same set of contacts. They are arising from the same interactions

that were spurred by Nokia's contact with us in 2007 when the iPhone launched. The second is, both claims of breach of contract will be resolved by what is an appropriate FRAND rate and whether offered. facts. So there is going to be a common set of

The fact of the matter is the parties only met a It's not going to be quite as expansive,

half-dozen times.

14 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I think, as Mr. Flinn suggests. Ultimately, the question of

whether there has been a FRAND offer and what is a FRAND rate will resolve both of them. The second is, I think the Eastern District of Texas case is, in fact, quite analogous, and was we think correct, because it recognized that resolving the FRAND issue was likely to resolve the entire worldwide dispute for the entire portfolio. And it did resolve it.

The interesting thing, Your Honor, is that -- I can't remember which judge did it in Texas. But in the The

opinion, he relied in part upon Vice Chancellor Strine.

opinion that they relied upon from Vice Chancellor Strine was in the Qualcomm-Nokia case, where Nokia was advocating precisely the position I am advocating now, which is: Resolve the contract issue, and that will resolve the dispute. The last point, Your Honor, is something has changed beyond the fact I have finished another trial and I am here and Mr. Quarles isn't. That is, Nokia has sued

Apple in Wisconsin, opening up yet another forum, five more patents, part of the portfolio. And it's the best

indication that we would urge the Court to help us find a way to resolve all of this. Otherwise, we are going to have

iterative patent cases one after another. The fact of the matter is, if we litigate the

15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 to add. MR. FLINN: Very briefly, Your Honor. I lawyers. Well, well argued on both sides. Mr. Flinn, did you have anything else you wanted ten patents before Your Honor, we have this massive Markman hearing, a 15-day trial, and the issue is resolved and some of the patents are valid and infringed, we are still going to have to decide the contract claim, because they claim that these patents are essential. get a FRAND rate. contract claims. The contract claim is the one claim that has the prospect -- or it's the best claim that has the prospect of taking all of these cases in all of these venues and resolving it once and for all, or at least giving the parties the incentive, a decision has been made, to go off and reach a reasonable resolution. THE COURT: Okay. This is the problem with good We claim, then, that we

We are still going to have to resolve the

appreciate your patience on this. Mr. Lee mentioned the Wisconsin case, and suggested that it, in fact, implicates FRAND issues. does not. It

The patents that are at issue in the Wisconsin They have not

case aren't subject to a FRAND obligation.

been declared essential to any SSO, they are not asserted to

16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 be essential to any SSO. So they are in the same category

of patents that Apple has sued Nokia for infringing and brought the ITC actions that Apple has brought against Nokia. The other point that I wanted to make that was also made previously in our in-person hearing but is worth revisiting, there are significant problems with adjudicating the FRAND contract claim beyond simply the several hundred U.S. patents that are at stake in this case. We have

several hundred foreign patents that are part of the portfolio that Mr. Lee, I think, would like the Court to rule on what the value of those patents is, in terms of a fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory rate. The other thing that I think will become clear when we plead, as I expect we will but I can't be sure, our contract claim, we believe that the contract arises once a party starts to use the technology claimed in an essential patent. Thus, we think that it is going to be impossible to adjudicate the FRAND contract issue without knowing which patents Apple actually uses. And for ten

patents, that is going to be complicated enough, but for several hundred U.S. patents, and I don't even know how we are going to deal with the foreign patents, it becomes nearly nightmarish.

17 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Wisconsin. The second thing, Your Honor, is a contract arises at the time that they participate in the standard organization. We are at least a third-party beneficiary to Your Honor. I think that the idea that the contract arises only when you use the technology is not correct. A contract new matter. THE COURT: Mr. Lee, Mr. Flinn has injected some

Do you care to react to it? MR. LEE: Yes. I would just say two things,

that we are the beneficiary of is the contract they made with the standard-setting organizations. beneficiary to that contract. One of the cases that the Third Circuit cited in the Broadcom appeal was a case that came out of San Diego, that we actually tried, that involved these issues. And And we are the

it's relevant in two respects according to what Mr. Flinn described. First, in that case Qualcomm declared the patents essential after the litigation had commenced. the mere fact that they may or may not have made the disclosures now doesn't tell us whether they claim they are essential or not. In fact, Nokia has made declarations of So

essentiality years after the standard has been adopted. So I don't think that tells us much about

18 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 counsel. that, which is in part what came out of the San Diego decision. On that issue I just disagree with Mr. Flinn.

And I continue to believe that we could have a five-day trial, as Your Honor planned, on the contract claim, and the likelihood is we would never need the second or third trial. THE COURT: Okay. Let me ask this of both

I would like to give this some further thought, is Would it be as simple

where I think I am going to end this.

if I were of a mind to reorder things, could it be as simple, counsel, in your view, given how far out the trials are in this matter and the due date for the pretrial conference and the due date for the proposed pretrial order, as simply reordering -- and this is what I have on my mind -- repositioning the patent and contract, flipping them, having them change positions, with the contract matter going first and the patent matter going second? MR. LEE: Your Honor, I think from Apple's point

of view, the answer is yes. THE COURT: And it wouldn't affect discovery or

anything of that nature, the manner in which discovery is proceeding? MR. LEE: THE COURT: I think that's right. We are not talking about -- at this

juncture, I think the order reflects that there is not going to be 56 practice. So it wouldn't affect that in any way.

19 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Right? MR. LEE: THE COURT: MR. FLINN: Right. Mr. Flinn. Well, one of the things, Your Honor,

that I think is going to be -- potentially make it hard simply to do the flipping is that it's pretty clear just from this call that Mr. Lee and I are not going to agree on some kind of very basic things about this contract, like what creates it, what the obligations of the contract are, and the like. It's a contract that actually arises out of French law, we believe, because the organization, the standards-setting organization in question for at least the telecom patents is a French entity called ETSE (phonetic). We believe, the French law makes clear that use of the patents is what triggers some contractual obligations. We don't think there is an obligation, if somebody is simply out walking down the street, that they had a license to Nokia's patents. They have to actually use

the technology to get a license to the patent and be obligated to pay royalties on it. So we are going to have to sort out that basic legal framework. contested. And I think it's going to be hotly

The scope of what comes into the case is going

to turn on that.

20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 If Mr. Lee is right that the only issue is what offer was made and rejected two or three times over the course of the negotiating history, that's one thing. don't think that's the contract that exists. contract is not as simple as that. THE COURT: Pardon the interruption, Mr. Flinn. But we

We think the

Isn't that going to be the issue whether we try the contract case on May the 21st or the patent case on June the 18th? Those issues are still going to be extant, aren't they? MR. FLINN: They are going to get -- we are

going to make more progress on them if we try the patent case first, because at least we are going to know whether or not there is, in fact, an obligation at all, because if we are correct in showing that the patents are essential and if we are correct in showing that they are used, we at least have something concrete in terms of what to value for purposes of what the FRAND contract requires. THE COURT: essentiality? MR. FLINN: Absolutely. Absolutely. We are Will the patent litigation establish

going to read the patents on the standard, and we are going to show that Apple complies with the standard. going to show essentiality. And that is

And then the question is what

is a fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory rate. THE COURT: Mr. Lee.

21 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. LEE: Your Honor, two things.

It may establish essentiality for some portion of the ten, but it still leaves the portfolio. I think what

neither of us has said, which may be the most important thing to tell Your Honor, is these licenses, when they get granted, even if they are resolving, for instance, the Qualcomm-Nokia fight, are portfolio licenses. No one is

going through and saying, well, this patent in Israel is worth this, this patent in Germany is worth this, this patent in the U.S. is worth that. There are portfolio licenses that cover the entire portfolio. And the question is, what is the FRAND That

offer and what is the FRAND rate for that portfolio?

is just a matter of expert testimony that Your Honor could hear in a couple of days and would resolve everything. If we followed Mr. Flinn's procedure to its logical conclusion, we would have a trial on ten patents. Some portion of them might be infringed. We then have to

move to whether there was a contractual obligation to offer FRAND, whether it was. And then, having had that decided,

we could move on to the next portion of the portfolio. But Nokia and Apple, without violating the NDA, have always discussed this as a portfolio licensing matter. And, in fact, that is what Nokia did with Qualcomm and how they resolved it. And that's what Nokia urged on Magistrate

22 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 it wrong. Judge Strine. THE COURT: MR. LEE: You mean Vice Chancellor Strine? Yes. Vice Chancellor Strine. I got

I apologize. I think, to be quite honest, one of the reasons

that I think Nokia would like to put the contract claim off is that on certainly the key issues that we have been arguing today, they have said the exact opposite. To take

the positions they are going to take is hard because of what happened in the other case. trial. THE COURT: Does anyone have the cite to the I That is why we would have the

Eastern District of Texas case off the top of your heads? don't remember where I saw it. joint status report. I was thumbing through the

I don't think it's actually there. Your Honor, we can track it down and

MR. FLINN: get it to the Court.

I will point out that I think there

were a number of lawsuits pending in different fora at the same time. We don't really know why they settled. But we

know there was a District Court case, there were ITC cases. We can track down the citation and forward that to the Court. THE COURT: Did the judge in that case explain

his reasoning for the manner in which he managed that case? MR. FLINN: I don't believe that there is

23 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Reporter: Kevin Maurer your time. anything significant about the reasoning. But whatever

there is, Judge, we will find it and get it to you. THE COURT: All right. Thank you. I don't think my leaving

Let me consider this.

things status quo, moving along as I have already ordered, interferes with progress in any way. Does it, in your view, Mr. Lee? MR. LEE: THE COURT: MR. FLINN: THE COURT: It does not, Your Honor. Mr. Flinn? I agree, Your Honor. All right, gentlemen. Thanks for

And take care. (Counsel respond "Thank you.") (Conference concluded at 2:36 p.m.) -