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RIM - The Whole Story

Posted by Zonk on from the better-than-pirates-of-silicon-valley dept.

khendron writes "The Globe and Mail has published an article titled Patently Absurd, detailing the whole history of the RIM vs. NTP wireless war. It is a blow by blow account of how a dispute that could have been settled for a few million dollars is now 'a billion-dollar dagger hanging over RIM.' The article reads like a fairy-tale of egos, legal blunders, and patent stupidity."

1 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. Long article... by Professor_UNIX · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I got about 20% of the way through and lost interest in this even though I've seriously been wondering what this whole Blackberry lawsuit is about. How can someone have a patent on something like "wireless e-mail"? Tons of phones can read e-mail and even my Motorola pager can send and receive e-mail. If NTP sat on this submarine patent just waiting for people to start using their technology without sending out cease and desist orders then their patent should be invalidated.

    Personally I feel companies that buy and sell patents as if they're some kind of property are a disgrace to everything the patent and trademark system was founded to uphold. They're not using the patents to innovate, they're just using the patents to extort money out of other companies. NTP should have all its patents stripped because it's quite clear they're nothing but a patent squatter.