Response strategies to the Dersch lawsuit

[Charles Simon <simon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Here are response strategies to the lawsuit threatening Helmut Dersch for
your consideration.  Your comments are welcome either privately or on the
IQTVRA list.

It looks like Jim Phillips (top official of Interactive Pictures
Corporation) and his management team are anxiously working toward an initial
public offering.  This type of public stock offering may bring Mr. Phillips
and his management team millions of dollars in personal wealth if the
Interactive Pictures Corporation stock trades at the levels of other
internet-related start ups.

It also appears that Mr. Phillips is under pressure to bring Interactive
Pictures Corporation to market relatively quickly.  The last round of US $28
million of growth capital was secured from a large group of investors.

This implies that the investment banker had to work hard to get investors.
This possible difficulty raising cash may explain why Interactive Pictures
Corporation yielded to onerous license restrictions.  If Interactive
Pictures Corporation were an especially sound or promising investment it
probably would have been easy to raise $28 million from one source with no
license restriction requirements.

The further implication is investors may be uninformed of our knowledge of
the panoramic marketplace, particularly and especially market size.  As a
result, their valuations, and ultimately their decision to invest may not
accurately reflect the true market size.

The Interactive Pictures Corporation earnings projections are probably based
on selling many thousand, perhaps millions of royalties, both for static and
moving panoramas.  To sell that many units we, as photographers and
developers of web sites, CD’s and Kiosks, must buy Interactive Pictures
Corporation spheres and we must buy lots of them.  To achieve this volume of
sales implies we will buy Interactive Pictures Corporation products and must
because no legal alternative exists.

Please comment on the following:

1.  Establish an IQTVRA supervised legal defense fund for Mr. Dersch and
consider legal actions.

If I were writing the prospectus for the Interactive Pictures Corporation’s
initial public stock offering the last thing I would want to include is a
mention of lawsuit by a group like the IQTVRA.  It raises uncertainties and
makes the offering more difficult.  It would be even more difficult to write
a paragraph about a legal defense fund.  As the writer of the prospectus I
would try to avoid disclosing either item by claiming they were not material
events.

Initial public stock offerings are carefully reviewed by the US Securities
and Exchange Commission staff.  They work to protect investors by requiring
public disclosure.  If the IQTVRA does create a legal defense fund or
decides on legal action, please be sure to email the details to the SEC
officer reviewing the Interactive Pictures Corporation prospectus.

2.  Share our knowledge of the size of the panoramic market and let
investors know about alternative, royalty-free/license-restriction-free
solutions

Then, an investor would have more information upon which to evaluate
Interactive Pictures Corporation financial projections and therefore the
value of Interactive Pictures Corporation and it’s stock price.

In particular one could share local market conditions with Interactive
Pictures Corporation’s current investors.  Here in Philadelphia, USA my
guess is that my fellow developers /photographers and I would use any legal
alternative to Interactive Pictures Corporations products.  This list of
investors is included in the press release section of the Interactive
Pictures Corporation site.

3.  Share our understanding of the Interactive Pictures Corporation patent
and license restrictions

If I were writing the Interactive Pictures Corporation prospectus I would
put the patent in the first few paragraphs.  It can import great value and
give a reason to pay a premium for Interactive Pictures Corporation stock.

Let’s consider sharing our view of the patent’s value.  As soon as the
Smoothmove/Kaidan product is available I will shoot high-resolution legal
spheres.  Here in Philadelphia, I would be happy to share my rig with fellow
developers Matt and Walter.  Let’s all post Smoothmove/Kaidan legal
spherical panoramas on our sites.

We can share with others that we can create legal spherical panoramas
without paying any royalty or being bound by changing licensing restrictions
by including a *royalty-free/license-restriction-free* banner on our sites.
We can also inform the market of companies creating moving or video-type
spherical panoramas and share our evaluations.  This may be a good place to
include our reasons for not ever purchasing Interactive Pictures Corporation
’s moving or video-type panoramas.  We may also include a statement of our
support of royalty-free and license-restriction-free solutions offered by
other companies.

4.  Establish an IQTVRA based Royalty-Free/ License-Restriction-Free
campaign

I’d rather not have the Interactive Pictures Corporation name on my site at
all.  We may consider a banner that states only
royalty-free/license-restriction-free panoramas, spheres and moving spheres
are included in our work.

The IQTVRA would be a great place to mount a
royalty-free/license-restriction-free campaign complete with a detailed
explanation of the license restrictions of the Interactive Pictures
Corporation spheres.

5.  Consider posting the IQTVRA position on listservs.

If I were the public relations person for Interactive Pictures Corporation I
would be posting all press releases to PR News and other investor-type news
services in the hopes of generating public interest in the public stock
offering.  The IQTVRA may wish to post its royalty-free,
license-restriction-free position in the same places.

6.  Share our knowledge with our investing friends

Those of us who invest on-line and are members of investment listservs,
especially initial public offering listservs, can consider sharing our
knowledge of the panoramic/spherical/moving spherical market with our fellow
investors.  The IQTVRA page describing our royalty-free,
license-restriction-free position is extremely important as a reference in
this regard.
___________

Let’s support our colleague Helmut Dersch with a legal defense fund.  I
pledge to donate one day of my work a month toward the fund.

Let’s share our knowledge of the panoramic marketplace with investors so
they have more information with which to make informed investment decisions.

Let’s work through the IQTVRA to establish a royalty-free/license
restriction-free position.

I support Helmut Dersch.

Charles Simon
simon@xxxxxxxxxx