I believe the first 10 got out cheap and just wanted the mess behind them. I also agree that the remaining defendants are being told by their attorneys that the billable hours are now going to go way up, so some may decide to just settle and also be done with the mess.

From Defendants Doc 309:

Permitting unrestrained discovery in this complex case before a Markman ruling is issued, will be extraordinarily burdensome and oppressive on the Defendants, ...

This is a patent infringement case. Plaintiff e.Digital sued 28 separate Defendants, and
alleges that a total of 324 accused products—including cell phones, digital cameras, and digital audio recorders—infringe four claims of U.S. Patent No. 5,491,774 and one claim of U.S. Patent No. 5,742,737.

Plaintiff’s second set of document requests, served by mail on August 24, 2010, (Ex. 9,
8/24/10 email from M. Yungwirth to Defendants’ counsel; Ex. 10, Second Set of Requests for Production of Documents to Defendants), require production of all of the development documents for each of the 324 accused products, including “project proposals, memos, notes, inventor notebooks, invention disclosures, communications regarding product development, revisions histories, flowcharts, drawings, specifications, documents pertaining to testing, status reports or summaries, progress reports or summaries, development schedules, computer simulations, logic diagrams, technical documentation, and functional documentation.” [This is the discovery EDIG is seeking on 324 accused products.]

Further, Plaintiff’s second set of document requests demand production of documents
“that discuss ... how end-users use the Currently Accused Products.” (Id., Req. No. 14.)
Plaintiff also demands documents “pertaining to any patent(s) or patent application(s) whether domestic or foreign considered by You before or during research, development, manufacture, promotion, or distribution of the Currently Accused Products.” [more discovery sought by EDIG.]

The second set of document requests also request minutes of meetings of “officers,
executives or directors” regarding this case, (id., Req. No. 25); “the quality value, usability performance demand or benefits of the Currently Accused Products,” (id., Req. No. 27); “advertising, marketing or sales” of the accused products, including “consumer surveys and market analyses,” (id., Req. No. 28); license fees (id., Req. No. 29); and sales, costs of distribution, costs of goods sold, production costs, net profit, sales projections and forecasts,...[more discovery sought by EDIG.]

On top of all of this, in its second set of interrogatories, which was also served by mail on August 24, 2010, e.Digital now wants each Defendant to identify “all products made, used offered for sale, licensed, or sold by You that are capable of recording/playback of audio and storing such audio signals digitally on removable flash memory.” [and yet even more discovery sought by EDIG.]

Interrogatories 9-12 require each Defendant to identify “by manufacturer, model number,
internal code name and internal part number, the processing unit, chipset, or circuitry” that
“performs an analog-to-digital conversion of an audio signal,” (id., Int. No. 9), “reads data from and writes data to, the removable flash memory,” (id., Int. No. 10), that “directly receives an audio signal from the microphone,” (id., Int. No. 11), and “amplifies an audio signal received from the microphone,” (id., Int. No. 12). First, this information is available from the products themselves. Second, this information is reflected in the circuit diagrams for the accused products that have already been produced to e.Digital.But that does not stop e.Digital from serving these onerous interrogatories, which are calculated solely to increase Defendants’ costs and attorneys’ fees by requiring defense counsel to do work that e.Digital’s counsel could have and should have done even before it filed this lawsuit.

EDIG's negotiating hand just got stronger with today's ruling.