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RIM Settles Long-Standing Blackberry Claim

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the end-to-a-long-and-sordid-tale dept.

David Jao writes "Research in Motion has agreed to pay 612.5 million dollars for a 'full and final settlement of all claims' resulting from the NTP patent lawsuit against the makers of BlackBerry. According to the article, the settlement is 'on the low end of expectations', perhaps because the patents in question had earlier been preliminarily ruled invalid by the US Patents & Trademarks Office." Many article submitters characterize this move as 'giving in' to NTP's tactics. What do you think?

4 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. All this proves is we need to fix the USPTO by morganew · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The industry and millions of consumers are breathing a collective sigh of relief tonight.

    Despite averting a BlackBerry shutdown, however, this case is just more proof that the US Patent Office is in crisis. While some of NTP's patents may prove to be valid, it is clear that many of them should never have been granted in the first place.

    The US Patent Office's failure to ensure quality threatens the patent system that is so critical to innovative small tech firms. If the quality of patents is not improved, the industry may lose faith in the entire system.

    Some may not like software patents, but the reality is that companies have them. Open Source Champion IBM is the single largest patenter in the WORLD. they still make billions (with a b) off of patent licensing - including software/method patent licensing. Small companies like 'slingbox' have patents to ensure that they get VC funding and to prevent Sony from just creating the exact same product and steamrolling them.

    I, along with Diane Peters from OSDL, Bruce Perens, lawyers from IBM and others got together at the USPTO last month to talk about ways to improve patent quality. No solutions yet, but some good discussion.

    The quality issue MUST be solved, and NOW; so before you launch into a general "patents suck" rage, take a reality check and think about ways to get more prior art into the patent system and improve the quality.

    It will be several years before patent reform legislation becomes law, so we are going to to have to find technology solutions that we can implement now, and hope that legislation fixes the things we can't.

    Morgan Reed

    --
    A sig?!? I don't think so.....
  2. Magic money for nothing by coljac · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Despite RIM's unethical courtroom tactics (which backfired spectacularly), I can't help but be very disappointed by this decision. SIX HUNDRED MILLION dollars - a staggering sum - to be paid to these guys, for what? No hard work, no product, no contribution to science and technology. It's extortion, and I don't even understand the leverage they used given their patents are invalid. If I was the CEO of RIM (ignoring the realities of fiduciary duties to shareholders) I would rather go bankrupt than let the patent trolls become wealthy from my hard work.

    The one good thing to come of this is it has raised the problem in the public eye. Congressmen thought they would lose their Blackberries. Let's hope some real reform is on the way.

    --
    Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
  3. Re:Disappointed by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I'm pretty disappointed with this move by RIM. I was hoping that by going all the way through the courts we might get some serious patent reform out of the whole mess

    This might not have been a good case for prompting patent reform. I haven't read the patents myself, but from the discussion on the TWiT podcast, they were saying that the patents actually looked pretty legitimate, and were only likely to be overturned because of the immense pressure the government was putting on to keep their Blackberries going.

    In other words, it's not clear that NTP is that bad guy here, and the RIM is the good guy.

  4. Re:612.5 million?! by augustz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hey Faedle,

    Someone else who has followed this case from the beginning :) Yep, the patent system is messed up, and some of us remember a lot of RIM claims to litigate others out the market with a similar sets of bogus patents (not even the small keyboard ones).

    I think their early IP talk actually popped them up on NTP's radar initially, they were making a lot of noise about it.

    They got exactly what they deserved, but the system could still use a fixing, badly.