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Blackberry In Court Again Over Patents

Posted by simoniker on from the patently-delightful dept.

uqbar writes "Looks like Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian makers of the portable Blackberry email device, are back in court again. If patent holding company NTP wins their case, then RIM would be barred from selling Blackberry pagers in the US and would owe $54 million. Is this yet another case of overreaching patents gone amok?" We previously covered the original ruling in this case in August 2003.

9 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Same case, this is the appeal. by JasonUCF · · Score: 4, Informative

    The headline is a bit misleading. Today is RIM's day in court for hearing on its appeal to the August 2003 decision where they were effectively slapped around.

    The Register and a few other newsies reported that RIM and NTP have tried to come to a royalty agreement, but so far have not budged.

    You can bet as soon as RIM loses this appeal (likely), they will very quickly come up with a royalty agreement for NTP, and life will go on.

    IANAL. I play one on slashdot.

  2. Again, I refer to two organizations.. by the_rajah · · Score: 3, Informative

    who are working to make our patent system a bit more fair and help with reducing the current abuses we are seeing. Pubpat Electronic Frontier Foundation

    "Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain

    --


    "Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
  3. Re:overreaching? by angle_slam · · Score: 5, Informative
    Partially correct. There is a filing fee that is non-refundable, even if the application is rejected. However, there is also something called an Issue Fee, which is only charged once a patent is granted. In addition, there are Maintenance Fees, which are charged at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years, in order to keep the patent from expiring.

    Here is the full fee schedule. Fees of note: filing fee is $770. Issue fee is $1,330. Maintenance fees are $990, $2,090, and $3,220. There are also fees for publication ($300), filing an assignment ($40), for filing excess claims (more than 20), filing late responses to the patent office, and many more. In general, "small entities" pay half of the amount listed above, though there are exceptions.

  4. What a silly patent. by Entropius · · Score: 4, Informative

    NTP in November 2001 filed a complaint contending that RIM's products and services infringe on at least five NTP patents (numbers 5,625,670; 5,631,946; 5,819,172; 6,067,451 and 6,317,592) granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) covering the use of radio-frequency wireless communications in e-mail systems.

    Does this mean that every time I use wlan0 instead of eth0 to check my mail I'm infringing on their patent?

    More generally, I would think the Amateur Packet Radio people would have some prior art on this. APR has been around for a while, I think... and certainly someone has used it to check mail.

  5. Re:What goes around comes around by shepd · · Score: 4, Informative

    >RIM has sued tons of companies on patent infrigment (they patented every little thing they could).

    Yup. That's how they got the nickname, "Lawsuits in Motion". Let's not forget about RIM Park, which they managed to weasel their name on to despite the city's population having to pay an additional $35.26 tax (5.47% of taxes overall) just to cover the city's funding of the park. Can someone explain to me how you can get your name on a park without either paying for the whole thing, or being a dead celebrity?

    --
    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
  6. Re:Should be a time limitation! by angle_slam · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is a limit. 35 U.S.C. 286 sets a time limit on damages such that "no recovery shall be had for any infringement committed more than six years prior to the filing of the complaint or counterclaim for infringement in the action."

  7. Prior Art by igrp · · Score: 4, Informative
    APR has been around for a while, I think... and certainly someone has used it to check mail.

    Well it's at least been used for that purpose since 1987. I think that's the first time I saw two BBSes being connected using amateur radio equipment. Must have been two Fidonet boxes. The connection wasn't quite stable but it worked.

  8. Re:Exiting models? by mccrew · · Score: 4, Informative
    How they ever got to be so popular I have no clue.

    Simple, really. They do one thing, e-mail, and do it well. Very well. Better than anyone else. It is easy to use. They have the common use case down cold.

    E-mail is the golden nugget. PDAs, even wirelessly enabled PDAs, are a dime a dozen. Heck, even cell phones are a commodity - cell providers have to give away the product in order to get people to buy the service.

    Having a Blackberry will save you an hour a day. The competion is clunkier and harder to use. They don't call 'em "Crackberry" for nothing.

    --
    Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
  9. Re:What goes around comes around by lightsaber1 · · Score: 3, Informative
    In defence of RIM, there are differences here: 1) RIM actually produced the thing...NTP produces nothing. 2) RIM's patent isn't nearly as broad as NTP's.

    RIM (specifically Mike Lazaridis) put a lot of effort into perfecting that keyboard for thumb typing and it is what the blackberry was built around. So yes, there was a lot of innovation there. It seems simple now, but at the time, it was a novel idea.

    Of course, I may be biased here because RIM was founded and is based right beside where I go to school (U of Waterloo), and they contribute a lot to and hire a lot of students from said school.