I've done quite a bit of initial patent work for startups that paid me with seed funding. Its important to get your patent applications filed early, so you can exclude your competitors from entering into your space.
Since this was a District Court decision, the appeal would go to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which keeps statistics on reversal rates on its web site. Last I looked, the reversal rate was somewhere between 18-30%. I.e., the odds are stacked against reversal on appeal.
And even a regular, non-provisional patent application does not enter into the public domain (i.e., published on the Patent Office web site) until 18 months after you file it. In fact, you can even request that the Patent Office NOT publish the patent application at all, until it actually becomes a patent (an average 3-year wait).
As a practicing U.S. patent attorney, I get this question quite a bit. What I usually advise clients is that you should protect your invention, but you shouldn't protect it to DEATH. Your goal is to monetize your invention, and that means selling products or services. You can't sell something without showing it to people, right?
I find the best balance between secrecy and disclosure is to file patent applications for your invention, thereby starting the patent process, and then start the process of developing it, showing it around, etc. Legal work related to patents can be expensive, but you could get a provisional patent application filed for $1,500, which is affordable for most. Enforcement is another issue, which can be costly. But law firms take patent infringement actions on contingency all the time, if you have a good case. This would not cost you a cent.