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. :)

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.

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

[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 :)

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 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