RIM Wins Ground in Patent War

ttyp0 writes "The maker of the BlackBerry on Wednesday gained some ground as it fights a battle over patents with NTP, which is trying to shut down most sales and service of the portable e-mail device in the United States. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a final rejection of one of five disputed patents owned by NTP, another step in a long process that Research In Motion Ltd. hopes will allow it to keep operating its U.S. BlackBerry service. NTP, a closely held patent holding company, has successfully sued RIM for infringement of its patents. I've been following the case closely as our company is about to invest in BES, a costly venture indeed."

Comments

BES cost

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've been following the case closely as our company is about to invest in BES, a costly venture indeed."

Yes, purchasing BES is expensive. But you can get some good deals, like my company did, where you buy 10 Blackberries and get a copy of BES for free.

Re:BES cost

[azcoffeehabit]

Another option is to use the Exchange mobile services and run your own messaging servers that way, nice thing is that it ties directly into your corporate messaging and keeps your emails on your servers. This option also gives you a wider range of devices that you can use (and probably even your existing cell phones if they were made anytime in the last 2 years).

Now if someone knows about a Linux solution it would make the setup even sweeter. :)

Re:BES cost

[brunes69]

You sound like a marketdroid.

Like a friend of mine said recently on this subject, "I don't care about pushing or pulling as long as it gets me where I am going".

There is useably no difference between a phone that polls every 2-3 minutes and a blackberry. If a message is make-or-break-must-read and two minutes is too long, it probbaly shouldn't have been in an email in the first place.

Re:BES cost

[aaarrrgggh]

The difference between push and polling is battery use on the handheld. Push increases battery life, which is always welcome.

Where's the beef?

[thunderlizard]

There isn't much news to this story -- and the submitter quoted close to half of the article in their summary...

This really isn't great news for the Blackberry, because RIM has already lost the original suit from NTP -- and as the article states, it could take *years* for the validity of the remaining 4 patents to be finalized... NTP could drag this process out in court for quite some time, all the while putting pressure on RIM or possibly finding a judge that will grant some type of injunction.

Sometimes it doesn't matter if you're right; it matters more if you're around for the long haul. After all, what's the use of being an excellent boxer if you can't last past 3 rounds?

NTP has the edge here...

Re:Where's the beef?

[thunderlizard]

Looks like a court will be considering an injunction tomorrow!

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1930775,00.as p

The Justice Dept.

[paulthomas]

A more apt classification would have been:

From the the-department-of-justice-shant-be-deprived-of-bla ckberries dept.

Too bad!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish for RIM and all associated workarounds to cease to exist. Honestly, how many of you have Blackberries for anything other than work? I, for one, would welcome our new blood pressure lowering Blackberry-less overlords.

RIM litigated first

[augustz]

RIM started this whole intellectual property mess. Some of you remember them making lots of noise about protecting their IP against all the scummy folks who were using it.

Of course, as with all things software patent related, it turns out that others had also patented similar things. And whamo, their story changes.

Anyone have the details of this history? It's something that seems to have been forgotten in this story. I know RIM sued at least Handspring and Good, but I'm really curious about the threats of litigation that got NTP to go after them.

Instead of RIM threatened by bogus patents, this story could very well be company that litigated others out of the market faces own medicine.

I don't remember this well enough though, someone has got to have the history in a better format. All I remember is that RIM was running around talking about patents from way way back.

Re:RIM litigated first

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell does that have to do with the merits of the current case? This eye-for-an-eye philosophy will only further complicate the matter intellectual property as it relates to technology.

Why didn't you *simply* ask for clarification about the NTP & RIM history, rather than add noise?

Re:RIM litigated first

[JohnFluxx]

I don't think it's eye-for-an-eye philosophy, but more of a karma philosophy. Many of us are at least smirking that RIM that lived by the patents dies by the patents, as they say. They tried sue others for stupid IP infringements, and now they are being brought down by another company suing them for stupid IP infringements. If that's not karma, I don't know what is :)

Re:RIM litigated first

[Wolfier]

Look at the actual patent before spewing out gibberish and put calculator keypads and Blackberry keypads in the same sentence.

It dictates the keys in very specific shapes, sizes, and relative arrangements - which I suspect is the result of some serious UI research.

It's not "just a miniature keyboard".

Re:From what I've read of the legal battle

[ficken]

Any time lawyers make money, it must be good for the economy. i.e.: Class action lawsuits, patent infringements, antitrust cases, etc....

</sarcasm>

From an engineering perspective

[troll -1]

Hasn't this dispute been going on forever? The sad irony is that if you add up all the legal resources consumed by this case and divert them to pure technology you could completely reinvent and develop the entire system.

How does all this help to promote the progress of science and useful arts as set forth in Article I, secition 8 of the US Constitution and for which patents are supposed to have their purpose?

In some perverse way Blackberry's troubles may be a deserved lesson in not adopting an open standard.

Even if Blackberry wins this, they'll eventually be hit with a "hot coffee" musculoskeletal disorder lawsuit.

So what's the answer? More lawyers, less engineers and invertors?

Re:From an engineering perspective

[killjoe]

"Hasn't this dispute been going on forever? The sad irony is that if you add up all the legal resources consumed by this case and divert them to pure technology you could completely reinvent and develop the entire system."

yes but then what would the lawyers do? They need to eat too you know.

Anyway it's called the US legal system. It's the biggest joke in the world. Look at how long the SCO case has been going on. Following that case taught me that the US legal system is a like a hot dog factory. You don't want to know how it works.

If you are looking to get a BES....

[HerculesMO]

And you're running MS Exchange -- Don't. Get Goodlink. It is 100 times better, works smoothly, and has a TRUE sync. And it's pretty worry-free. I have used them side by side for about 2 years now, and Goodlink just works better in spades. Administration, upgrades, deployment, etc... it's all better and simpler.

However if you are not on MS Exchange, then of course that would necessitate the RIM solution.

Re:From what I've read of the legal battle

[vertinox]

Any time lawyers make money, it must be good for the economy. i.e.: Class action lawsuits, patent infringements, antitrust cases, etc....

Its not like the lawyers are hording the money.

I mean, think of all those poor hookers that would be out of a job if we didn't have all that litigation money going into the lawyer's pockets. ;)

Write your congressman

[GrEp]

Write your congressmen and ask them to drag these patent examiners in for questioning:

William G. Trost:
  6,317,592 and 6,067,451 Electronic mail system with RF communications to mobile processors

Stephen Chin
  6,272,190 System for wireless transmission and receiving of information and method of operation thereof
  6,198,783 System for wireless serial transmission of encoded information

WTF? What crack is this article on?

[SirDrinksAlot]

Please for the love of god will somebody go to rim.com and read the press release?

To Quote: http://www.rim.com/news/press/2006/pr-22_02_2006-0 1.shtml

All of the NTP patents have been rejected by the Patent Office in initial and second Office Actions, based in part on prior art not considered in the 2002 trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The rejections from the Patent Office were all based on multiple grounds, required the unanimous agreement of 3 senior patent examiners and are expected to withstand all future appeals by NTP.

It only took a month to go from the second to final re examination on the most recient invalidated patent. Yea right the process is going to take years ignoreing everything thats taken place already... This guy needs to be banned from journalism.

"Successfully"?

[John Hasler]

> NTP, a closely held patent holding company, has successfully sued
> RIM for infringement of its patents.

"successfully sued" inplies that they have won something. They have not. All that they have succeeded in doing so far is filing, which anyone with the cash for the filing fees can do. Tomorrow is the hearing on their motion for a preliminary injunction. There is an excellent chance that it will be denied.

Re:"Successfully"?

[MacBoy]

Curious that inaccurate remarks are getting modded up as "Insightful" thesedays.

NTP has "WON" the suit, in that the court has ruled that RIM did in fact infringe on the patents. Now the court needs to decide what NTP gets for it. So far, the court has awarded (as a preliminary step while ligitation continues) NTP over 8% of RIM's sales, but NTP is not happy enough with that. RIM and NTP have not been able to come to an agreement on licensing, royalties, whatever, so the court now has to decide whether or not to enforce NTP's request for an injunction which will stop sales and service of the infringing devices. Both sides are calling the other's bluff. NTP hopes that if the injunction goes through, RIM will buckle and pay up hefty royalties rather than fizzle and die. RIM says it has a non-infringing software update ready to deploy if an injunction happens. RIM (and the world) also knows it will eventually win, because the USPTO has already issued preliminary rejection of ALL patents claims concerning the case, and now, a final rejection of some (2 of 9 claims IIRC). But until they are all final rejections, RIM is still infringing and therefore in a precarious legal position (subject to injunctions, for instance). NTP wants to cash in; RIM just wants to continue conducting business (i.e. earning money rather than litigating as a source of income, ala NTP, RAMBUS, SCO, ...) without the handicap of obscene royalties for baseless patents.

Re:Er, huh?

[brunes69]

BS. The blackberry packet radio sends positive connectivity messages off to the towers. This is how the protocol ensures delivery of the data.

Why do you think, the tower just beams out the email and hopes the device is connected?