[PornoDoggy]

Okay, first of all, I was not attacking you when I said that you were looking for someone to blow happy smoke up you ass.

It was a crude way of saying you are hoping that the fact that the glass isn't quite dry means that it is really full of an unlimited quantity of [insert your beverage here].

To elaborate on/clarify my "personal experience" comment - I meant by that my experience with law firms in general, big ones in particular. I have no experience with you, and I'm not quite sure why you went off in that direction.

Second of all, I have read the press release you seem to think suggests that Microsoft is somehow secretly involved in the Acacia matter, and I simply don't see what you do - and while I may WANT to see something like that happen as much as anyone does, I don't think holding my breath and hoping it's true is going to be any more effective than putting on ruby slippers and clicking my heels three times.

You are correct - Acacia's patents, left standing, will someday pose a threat to MS. How much MS is actively preparing for meeting that threat is guesswork - just as much on your part as mine. I have no doubt that dozens of parties are watching what is going on here.

I used to work for a law firm. I don't do that type of work any more. I'm sure a lot of people "posting on a porn board at midnight" used to do other things.

I am reasonably certain that we acted as local counsel for Fish & Richardson on a patent case they were defending in Federal Court in St. Louis; either that, or we were opposing them in a patent matter over some automotive repair equipment. Only worked on four or five patent matters; mostly what I worked on were class action suits against banks, and product liability cases - always on the defense side of the courtroom.

As far as what I did for the law firm, I did litigation support for multimillion dollar cases involving product liability cases against manufacturers, a couple of cases involving the banking industry; as I said, a couple of patent cases - and one case involving pig shit (I shit you not).