i've been involved in a few of these... it matters because ultimately it could come down to a jury trial and then a judge's decision regarding damages. how 'big

i've been involved in a few of these... it matters because ultimately it could come down to a jury trial and then a judge's decision regarding damages. how 'big' the claims are matters to the real people making the decisions in the courtroom. they're not going to award billions of dollars of damages for a minor claim, for instance, and claims can sometimes be worked around, so often the damage done to the infringed party is what's at stake, plus penalties. (admittedly, this is an oversimplification) i've sat in a room full of people discussing these issues ad nauseam and i can tell you with 100% confidence that this is like a poker game, the size of the chip stack affects the confidence, timing, positioning, etc, of the players throughout the whole game. if one side has a great set of claims and the other doesn't, it definitely matters.