I/P Engine, Inc. v. AOL, Inc. et al

Filing 606

Response to 206 MOTION to Seal Portions Of Google Inc.s Brief In Support Of Motion To Compel And Various Exhibits To The Declaration Of Jen Ghaussy in Support Thereof Notice of Filing Response to Agreed Order to Maintain Portions of Documents Under Seal filed by AOL Inc., Gannett Company, Inc., Google Inc., IAC Search & Media, Inc., Target Corporation. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit H (Undreacted, Public Form), # 2 Exhibit I (Unredacted, Public Form), # 3 Exhibit L (Unredacted, Public Form), # 4 Exhibit M (Unredacted, Public Form), # 5 Exhibit N (Unredacted, Public Form), # 6 Exhibit P (Unredacted, Public Form), # 7 Exhibit Q (Unredacted, Public Form), # 8 Exhibit R (Unredacted, Public Form), # 9 Exhibit S (Undredacted, Public Form), # 10 Exhibit T (Unredacted, Public Form), # 11 Exhibit U (Unredacted, Public Form))(Noona, Stephen)



EXHIBIT R



Page 1
1

Volume I

Pages 1 - 157

2

Exhibits 1 - 20

3

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

4

EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA

5

NORFOLK DIVISION

6

********************

7

I/P ENGINE, INC.,

8
9
10

*

Plaintiff,

*

Civil Action No.

Vs.

*

2:11-cv-512

AOL, INC., et al.,

*

11

Defendants.

*

12

********************

13
14

AUDIO/VISUAL DEPOSITION of LYCOS, INC.,

15

by and through its designee MARK BLAIS

16

Tuesday, July 31, 2012 at 9:00 a.m.

17

Goulston & Storrs

18

50 Rowes Wharf, 7th Floor

19

Boston, Massachusetts

20
21

------ Jacqueline P. Shields, RPR, CSR ------

22
23
24

Job No. CS409539

Veritext Corporate Services
800-567-8658

973-410-4040

Page 95
1

Q.

And looking at the left-hand side, on

2

behalf of Lycos, Inc. it looks like it was signed by

3

counsel at Dickstein Shapiro?

4

A.

Yes.

5

Q.

Did Dickstein Shapiro represent Lycos in

6

its litigation with Blockbuster?

7

A.

Yes.

8

Q.

Did Dickstein Shapiro also represent Lycos

9

in its litigation with TiVo?

10
11

A.
late.

Yes.

Not at the beginning.

They came in

Later in the case.

12

Q.

When did they come in?

13

A.

I think during the time that the summary

14

judgment motions were being drafted and filed, but

15

at that time we were still being represented

16

principally by McDermott, Will & Emery.

17

Q.

Did that change at some point?

18

A.

Yes.

19

Q.

When was that?

20

A.

After the Court's ruling in the case we

21

changed to Dickstein representing us.

22

Q.

Does Dickstein still representing Lycos?

23

A.

No.

24

Q.

When did Dickstein stop representing Lycos?

Veritext Corporate Services
800-567-8658

973-410-4040

Page 96
1

A.

As of the end of this case.

2

Q.

Was Lycos ever offered to license the '420

3

patent to anyone other than -- anyone other than

4

TiVo?

5

A.

I don't think we ever made a specific offer

6

to license it to TiVo.

7

just as part of the family.

8

terms, but other than its inclusion in there, no.

9
10

Q.

I think we included it as a,
It was part of their

Similarly, has Lycos ever made an offer to

anyone to license the '664 patent?

11

A.

No.

12

Q.

Has anyone ever contacted Lycos to request

13

the license to the '420 patent?

14

A.

No.

15

Q.

Similarly, has anyone ever contacted Lycos

16

to request the license to the '664 patent?

17

A.

No.

18

Q.

Has Lycos ever contacted Google regarding

19

licensing the '420 patent?

20

A.

Not that I'm aware of.

21

Q.

Similarly, has Lycos ever contacted Google

22

regarding licensing of the '664 patent?

23

A.

Not that I'm aware of.

24

Q.

You can set that one aside.

Veritext Corporate Services
800-567-8658

973-410-4040

Page 126
1
2

A.

letter of intent to purchase that portfolio.

3
4

At a certain point we entered an LOI,

Q.

When you say the patent portfolio, you mean

the entire portfolio?

5

A.

6

advice.

7

Q.

8
9

The entire portfolio.

Against my better

Do you recall what the terms of the LOI

were?
A.

Generally.

They changed because we, at

10

first we entered an LOI subject to, I believe,

11

90 days of due diligence.

12

we were going to sell them the patent portfolio in

13

whole for around 4 or 4 and a half million.

14

Q.

We, I believe, initially

Do you know who conducted -- well, first,

15

do you know if any due diligence occurred subject to

16

that letter of intent?

17

A.

Yes.

18

Q.

Do you know who conducted the due

19
20
21
22
23
24

diligence?
A.

Altitude itself did.

They had an in-house

counsel.
Q.

Do you know if they had any outside counsel

involved?
A.

They did.

Veritext Corporate Services
800-567-8658

973-410-4040

Page 127
1

Q.

Who was that?

2

A.

It was Dickstein Shapiro.

3

Q.

At the time that it occurred was Dickstein

4

Shapiro still representing Lycos?

5

A.

They had not started to represent Lycos

6

yet.

7

Dickstein at that time.

8
9

I did not have any direct communications with

Q.

Does Lycos have any knowledge as to the

results of that due diligence?

10

A.

Only what I was told by Warren.

11

Q.

And that is?

12

A.

And that is -- well, one of the issues was

13

with the patents in suit at the time, we wanted out

14

of litigation, and so we either needed them to step

15

in after the fact.

16

them, we no longer have standing to prosecute the

17

litigation, and we didn't want to remain in it in

18

name or any capacity.

19

litigation, so we could do the deal.

20

them outright, it came to a point where they also

21

didn't like the jurisdiction.

22

liked the patents differently or not, they are

23

pretty careful of not sharing that type of

24

information with me.

If we sold them and assigned

Or we had to finish up the
And to sell

I don't know if they

It came to a point where they

Veritext Corporate Services
800-567-8658

973-410-4040

Page 131
1

anything.

So when it got to that point, our hands

2

were tied.

And I think Ybrant wanted to look at

3

this after the fact if they were buying our company.

4

They wanted to buy it in place.

5

negotiations at that time.

6

Q.

So we stopped all

Did Lycos ever begin negotiations regarding

7

the sale of its patents after it entered -- after

8

its acquisition by Ybrant?

9

MS. ALBERT:

Okay.

Vague.

10

A.

Say that one more time.

11

Q.

It's a terrible question.

12

A.

I didn't say that.

13

Q.

That's fair.

Sorry.
Let's try again.

I will, I will own that.

Did

14

Lycos and Altitude Capital ever have any other

15

negotiations regarding the sale of patents after the

16

spring of 2010?

17

A.

18

After the -MS. ALBERT:

Objection.

Vague.

19

A.

After the fall of 2010, yes.

20

Q.

And when was that?

21

A.

That would have been sometime late spring

22

or summer 2011.

23

Q.

What patents were involved in that

24

negotiation?

Veritext Corporate Services
800-567-8658

973-410-4040

Page 132
1

A.

Well, I was contacted by another -- at that

2

time we were not, we did not -- let me step back.

3

We had received an offer from a third party, another

4

party related to the patents in suit here.

5

Q.

And who is that third party?

6

A.

Stayko Staykov.

7

And that is S-T-A-Y-K-O

S-T-A-Y-K-O-V.

8

Q.

Who is Stayko Staykov?

9

A.

He's from that Borat movie, I think.

No,

10

he owns an intellectual property investment type of

11

company.

12

if I remember correctly.

13

And he's invested in intellectual portfolio s

14

before, and he contacted me.

I believe it was called Eidos, E-I-D-O-S,
And a smaller company.

15

Q.

And when did he contact you?

16

A.

Sometimes in the spring of 2011.

17
18

And he

came up and met with me.
Q.

When you said the patent at issue in this

19

case, which patents specifically did he indicate

20

that he was interested in?

21

A.

The '664 patent and the '420 patent.

22

Q.

Any others?

23

A.

Well, I mean, I think the discussion

24

necessarily included the whole patent family.

So if

Veritext Corporate Services
800-567-8658

973-410-4040

Page 133
1

I remember correctly, he -- I don't know if he

2

actually cited those two specifically, but he wanted

3

the family of patents.

4

Q.

When did you first meet with him?

5

A.

Spring of 2011, I believe.

6

Q.

Did he make an offer to purchase the patent

7

of families at the time?

8

that time?

9

A.

The family of patents at

After our meeting he did some brief due

10

diligence and sent me some information about

11

himself, and then made an offer.

12

Q.

And what was that offer?

13

A.

It's hard for me to remember right now, but

14

it was in the 1 million range.

15

point we're only talking about this one patent

16

family, not the whole portfolio.

17
18
19
20
21
22

Q.

And, again, at this

Did he say why he was interested in this

patent family?
A.

I think he just said so that he could

monetize it in some fashion.
Q.

Did he tell you how he identified this

patent family?

23

A.

I know that Dickstein had him contact me.

24

Q.

How did you respond to the offer from Mr.

Veritext Corporate Services
800-567-8658

973-410-4040

Page 134
1

Staykov?

2

A.

I told him it was too low.

3

Q.

Did you provide a counter offer?

4

A.

It took a while for me to get any response

5

from Israel, which is where our parent company's

6

kind of business is operated.

7

parent company is operated.

8

located in Indiana, but the business operations of

9

Ybrant is in Israel.

10

It's not where our
Our parent company is

It took me a while to get a

response back.

11

In the meantime I spoke with our CEO, who

12

told me to see if I could get other parties

13

involved, and that's when I reached out to Altitude

14

again and said, hey, you know, the previous LOI's

15

have no effect anymore, but I wanted to give you a

16

courtesy call, give you a heads-up that we're in

17

discussion to sell this one patent family, not our

18

portfolio anymore, and that we have an offer on the

19

table.

And if you want to throw in your hat, let me

20

know.

So they were a little perturbed by that whole

21

thing, but it's business.

22

put me in contact with another company, which was

23

Hudson Bay Capital, and Alex Burger.

24

Q.

And then Dickstein also

Is Dickstein representing Lycos at the

Veritext Corporate Services
800-567-8658

973-410-4040