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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?

5 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. 612.5 million?! by BewireNomali · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Low end of expectations? Wow. This justifies patent squatting to the unscrupulous looking for the cash-out.

    --
    un burrito me trampeó.
  2. Re:I'm confused... by cyngus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Simple. The uncertainty surrounding RIM was hurting their business and was going to continue to. By resolving the dispute sooner they keep many customers they might have lost and have a better chance of attracting more. NTP could have kept this dragging through the courts for years and possibly sunk RIM in the process. Gotta love corporate shakedowns.

  3. Not having a product doesn't mean anything by PCM2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not in favor of NTP or anything, but the people who point out that NTP had no product are missing the point of patents.

    Suppose you invented the Blackberry. You. Right now. You have the idea. Now what? Do you have the financial backing to manufacture a million Blackberrys? Do you have the industry connections to go around and make deals with all the mobile carriers to get your service into people's hands? No. But it's still a good idea, so you want to go forward with it. That means finding potential partners and investors. But just talking to those people about it is spreading the idea around. Suppose you go to the mobile company and say, "I have these plans for this service, I'm going to call it Blackberry." What's stopping them from just making the service themselves and cutting you out of the picture completely?

    Your patent is.

    In an ideal world, that's what patents are for: protecting the little guy inventor from big business.

    --
    Breakfast served all day!
  4. RIM is a not a hero, fellas by feijai · · Score: 5, Insightful
    RIM:
    1. Worked so hard to run its competitors out of the market with lawsuits that The Register nicknamed it "Lawsuits in Motion"
    2. Ignored all entreaties from NTP for a year, forcing NTP to eventually sue them.
    3. Lied in court so often that they received three-times punative damages just for their court conduct alone, plus attorneys' fees.
    4. Gave Congress free Blackberries as a tactic to get them hooked, then
    5. (Successfully) Lobbied Congressmen to put big-time pressure on the USPTO to invalidate NTP's patents while the court case was ongoing (can you say "cut off their air supply"?), regardless of their actual validity. In the US, if you're doing something illegal, you can always get the law changed if you have enough money. Even if you're a foreign company.
    6. Tried to push through a congressional resolution that shutting down the Blackberry network would be a "threat to national security" because of the free Blackberries they'd hooked the feds on.
    7. (Successfully) Lobbied the Canadian government to weigh in as if this were a matter of international concern.
    8. Purposely delayed resolution until after NTP's original inventor died.

    This company deserves to go straight to hell. $612 million is a rap on the knuckles.

  5. NTP did have products! by waldo2020 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, Campana's company Telefind did have working products, albeit prototypes, exhibited at Comdex in 1990. There weren't terrible reliable - as the networks weren't either, only one way email to pagers but they worked. AT&T was online as primary customer but ducked out leaving Telefind high and dry. Campana inherited tha patents after a lawsuit against Telefind."Mr. Narayanan liked Telefind's products, thinking they might fit well with the Safari project. AT&T had an e-mail system and a prototype computer; what it lacked was a paging service that could put the two together. But after a year of flirting with Telefind, even demonstrating Telefind's system at the Comdex computer show in Las Vegas, AT&T opted for a larger partner in Skytel." RIM's 800 and 900 series pagers were released in 1990 - well after Telefind. Mind you they were true 2-way pagers operating on Motorola's wireless packet Mobitel network. What brought on the NTP lawsuit was RIM's own arrogance in suing othe companies like Palm for having the audacity to incorporate tiny keyboards in their products. C'mon RIM! Who's the troll now?