Yurnga,Your comments always had some relevance. We here in Aust...

Yurnga,

Your comments always had some relevance. We here in Aust are generally naïve when it comes to assessing IP risk. It tends to be a battle that's fought in the US/European arenas so investors here don't put it highly on their DD check list.

But even still, just because NEA have the patents, doesn't mean they wont be challenged. In fact, the US has 10s of thousands of patent attorneys whose sole goal in life is to hang on the patent websites and scour new patents for minutia such as grammatical errors that could give these parasites the smallest cause to strike a major corporate legal challenge to any new comer. It a billion ++$ 'industry'.

A case in point...Pictometry celebrated smashing a competitor for patent infringement about a year ago (I could be wrong on the timing) so to expect a patent as an ironclad vault of value is naïve.

I have little doubt that Pictometry's attorneys have already reported on NEA's patent and are now assessing their strategy. They have just sold their coy for US$650m and is still in the DD window so you can bet they have done some work on this upstart foreigner.

But I have faith that NEA has the knowledge and processes to protect their/OUR IP. But if there is a challenge, Its going to cost us a lot to hire back (at 2-3 times rate) the IP assertion team we've just disbanded last year.

The $1m/year we saved a year ago will seem like chump change if there is a challenge. But that NEA has such an acknowledged reputation in tech IP assertion - especially in the US should deter most trigger happy IP parasites.

Anyway, Pictometry got sold for a PE of somewhere between 25-30x (but this is a bit meaningless as I cant see their balance sheet or cash flow statements). A minimum benchmark for the future I recon - if their patents can stand the challenge of the likes of Pictometry.

Hey yurnga (or any other patent-skilled NEA shareholder), any chance of comparing NEA's and Pictometry's patents?

Just a thought...

Cheers,