6. STOCK-BASED COMPENSATION

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2017

Disclosure of Compensation Related Costs, Share-based Payments [Abstract]

STOCK-BASED COMPENSATION

Stock Incentive Plans

Options

We have one long-term equity incentive plan which we refer to as the 2006 Equity Incentive Plan, which we first amended and restated as of April 20, 2015 and again on March 9, 2017 (“the Restated Plan”). The Restated Plan was approved by our stockholders at our annual stockholders meeting on June 8, 2017. We have reserved for issuance under the 2017 Restated Plan 14,000,000 shares of common stock. We can issue options, stock awards, stock appreciation rights, stock units and cash awards under the 2017 Restated Plan. Certain options granted under the Restated Plan to employees are intended to qualify as incentive stock options under existing tax regulations. Stock options generally vest over three to five years and expire five to ten years from the date of grant.

 As of September 30, 2017, we had outstanding options to acquire 515,149 shares of our common stock, of which options to acquire 160,000 shares were exercisable. The following summarizes all of our option transactions for the nine months ended September 30, 2017:

Outstanding Options Under the 2006 Plan	Shares			Weighted Average Exercise price Per Common Share		Weighted Average Remaining Contractual Life (in years)		Aggregate Intrinsic Value
Balance, December 31, 2016		375,626		$	6.82
Granted		184,523			6.30
Canceled, forfeited or expired		(45,000	)		9.50
Balance, September 30, 2017		515,149			6.40		6.04	$	2,651,576
Exercisable at September 30, 2017		160,000			6.95		0.28		736,800

Aggregate intrinsic value in the table above represents the total pretax intrinsic value (the difference between our closing stock price on September 30, 2017 and the exercise price, multiplied by the number of in-the-money options as applicable) that would have been received by the holder had all holders exercised their options on September 30, 2017. No options were exercised during the nine months ended September 30, 2017. As of September 30, 2017, total unrecognized stock-based compensation expense related to non-vested employee awards was $843,208 which is expected to be recognized over a weighted average period of approximately 2.9 years.

Restricted Stock Awards (“RSA’s”)

The Restated Plan permits the award of restricted stock awards (“RSA’s”). As of September 30, 2017, we have issued a total of 4,945,460 RSA’s of which 449,851 were unvested at September 30, 2017. The following summarizes all unvested RSA’s activities during the nine months ended September 30, 2017:

	RSA's			Weighted-Average Remaining Contractual Term (Years)		Weighted-Average Fair Value
RSA's unvested at December 31, 2016		573,145				$	6.18
Changes during the period
Granted		681,448					5.98
Vested		(804,742	)				6.02
RSA's unvested at September 30, 2017		449,851			0.57	$	6.12

We determine the fair value of all RSA’s based of the closing price of our common stock on award date.

 Other stock bonus awards

The Restated Plan also permits the award of stock bonuses not subject to any future service period. These awards are valued and expensed based on the closing price of our common stock on the date of award. During the nine months ended September 30, 2017 we issued 35,800 shares relating to these awards, amounting to $361,370 of compensation expense.

Plan summary

In sum, of the 14,000,000 shares of common stock reserved for issuance under the Restated Plan, at September 30, 2017, we had issued 13,070,159 total shares between options, RSA’s and other stock awards. With options cancelled and RSA’s forfeited amounting to 3,020,009 and 59,053 shares, respectively, there remain 4,008,903 shares available under the Restated Plan for future issuance.