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RIM Loses NTP Case, To Pay $53 Million
theodp writes "A judge has ruled in favor of holding company NTP in its patent-infringement case against BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, awarding monetary damages and fees of $53.7 million and granting an injunction preventing RIM from making, using, or offering to sell handhelds, services or software in the U.S. until the date of expiration of NTP's patents, the latest of which is May 20, 2012. The court then stayed that injunction, pending an appeal by the Canadian company."
This verdict is quite a blow to Research In Motion, but an injunction against RIM to stop selling the BlackBerry would be devastating. I have to agree with Balsillie in his assessment that an injunction of that magnitude would be unlikely. The US$23.1 million dollar settlement could also be overturned in February. After all, anything can happen in a jury trial, and it is really not until an appellate court gets the case that the legality of NTP's claim is truly measured.
I am sure that Handspring and Good Technology, companies that have felt RIM's legal wrath in the past, are happy to see RIM get a little taste of its own medicine. An interesting thing to note about NTP is that it has no commercial operations at all. It is simply a holding company that has the patents. Needless to say, owning and defending patents could easily be a source of revenue for a company. As it relates to this case it seems that type of business structure may be profitable.
RIM finally reaps what they sowed.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I think that recent conversations about patents and such talk about how foolish patents like this are: infringed on its patents covering the use of radio frequency wireless communications in e-mail systems.
I really dont think logical next steps should be patentable. I would like to patent using nano technology to make monitors as easy to read as print, or, using light below the visible spectrum to read optical information at even smaller wavelengths, or...
Besides, I think that RIM has really done a lot to immprove the state of communications in large corporations
paul reinheimer
I'm wondering that myself. Wouldn't radio telegrams, like the ones sent from the Titanic in 1912, constitute prior art?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
But my patent actually does something.
Email over wireless sounds WAY too broad to me. I hope RIM finds markets outside of the US where approval of patents on the grounds of "non-obvious" and "inventiveness" is much stricter.
While I consider RIM a competitor to what I'm doing, I wish them all the best, as they have some very fine products.
I know, let's take another two innovative inventions and put them together in an obvious way, then we can all be rich!
I think I'll patent wireless car audio. Less messy hookup, easily swap your system out when it breaks/gets old, etc. Aside from some probable technical difficulties, once this comes out I'll be rich. I'll just sue.
Seriously, could this mean that I can't get mail on my cel phone anymore? Or is this specifically limited to devices designed to provide such a feature exclusively? (And wouldn't SMS pagers infringe, since that is a form of wireless electronic mesaging?)
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Innovation by litigation things are getting rediculous and the only people to profit from this nonsense are Lawyers.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
and that would be useful how?
As a PDA and depending on the model, maybe a cellphone.
If the injuction goes through then you won't be able to wirelessly connect a blackberry to the network because there won't be the essential key to their operation... RIM.
A new feature is just a bug waiting to happen. And vice versa.
If the jury was asked whether RIM violated the patent, they probably made the right decision in saying that they did.
But that's because NTP's patent is ridiculous. Who are they going to go after next? TabletPC users who happen to use a wireless connection? People who read E-mail through a handheld connected to their cell phone?
RIM is right in having this patent re-examined. Now, I think RIM itself is a thoroughly disgusting company when it comes to stupid patents and that if this infringement claim holds up it would be poetic justice. But that is little satisfaction in the long term: if these kinds of patents hold up in court, it is bad for the industry.
You cannot patent that, because the price of a patent and the price of enforcing a patent has been set way above the assets that a normal person will be able to afford.
Nor can the company you work for patent it; if they do, they won't profit from it, because they will simply be sued for some cross-licensing issue.
Sorry, but patent barratry is a privilege reserved for the nobility: the pure legal attack firms.
I need not say it again, but I will: Patent law is inherently broken.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
While the remaining re-examination and appeal processes may take several years to complete...
Several years? Great. So in about 5 years there'll be a post on Slashdot with the title "Suit against RIMjob company some old Internet protocol is finally over"
[that is, if Slashdot becomes overrun with immature pre-teens in the next five years.... oh wait, what am I saying]
Patent law is thorny enough, but how bad must internation patent law be?
Incidentally, does anyone know if the US and Canada have automatic patents between them? Are patents in the US enforceable in Canada, and vice versa? You'd think so, what with the close trade ties and all.
I pity the fact that this amazing little canadian company
Considering how crappy RIM has treated others with their patents, I have little sympanthy for them.
I think the point is, your RIM mobile device, talking with your company's BlackBerry server is useless since the service (and underlying network) that takes the message from your mailbox to your Crackberry ain't gonna be there. Making the device nothing more then a cool, but useless belt accessory, even if its only $5.
This country is badly in need of compulsory patent licensing like they have in Europe. This isn't just important in the tech industry but in pharmecutical industry as well.
What really gets me about the RIM patents (and other wireless patents) is that there's nothing there. Any wired technology can be made wireless, its no biggie. Running out and getting a patent on "wireless email" is the equivalant of getting a patent out on progress.
In the end, this patent nonsense hurts the consumer and hurts business. I hope more cases like this keep happening to show the public, patent lawyers, and politicians that the "patent everything" mentality just doesn't work.
I agree that a company that has designed and created a working implementaion of a product would be entitled to sue another company that has created the same product. However, in this partictular case, it seems that the company that is being sued is the one that has created a successful working implementation, and the only reason why NTP actually gets anything is the simple fact that they got to the very general idea first. The patenting of the very concept of wireless e-mail is just whacked.
This lawsuit is good only for one company: NTP, and terrible for RIM and the consumers. NTP is merely a holding company that creates no innovation, just hogs ideas before other companies who have intention to make a working implementation and create a functional product. The consumer market would be held back from a good product if RIM goes out of business, and the Blackberry may very well rise in price if they don't.
This particular use of patent holding companies should be outlawed. If someone wants to patent something, they should be required to actually make innovative use of the patent within a short amount of time. Otherwise, holding companies just become minefields for industry and encourage bogus patents such as this one -- where some unethical weasel files for hundreds of patents on obvious technologies and then just waits for someone to come along and bump into them. Absolutely disgusting.
Don't forget that RIM is the same company that received a U.S. patent for "A hand-held electronic device with a keyboard optimized for use with the thumbs"
Just ask Adobe and Macromedia for a real world view of how ludicrous software patents have become.
Then I hope that all of the corporations that have invested heavily in RIM's services will have to sit back and watch while their investment goes dark.
Then I would like to see them create a fake grassroots movement or a political action committee that aims to reform the patent processes before it happens to them.
Though I'm wary of large companies deciding the future of intellectual property law, I hope that they see that no-one wins in a nuclear arms race like this one where any yahoo with an idea can build the bomb that ... ahh, screw the metaphors.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Innovation by litigation is a lot like security by obscurity. Oxymorons, both, and financially profitable.
Batou: Hey, Major... You ever hear of "human rights"? Major: I understand the concept, but I've never seen it in action