| Another setback for RIM in BlackBerry patent case |
|
|
NEW YORK: A U.S. federal judge ruled 30 November that the $450 million settlement reached between BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. and U.S software company NTP Inc. was not "enforceable".
District judge James Spencer in Richmond, Virginia, also denied the Canadian company's request to keep the case on hold until the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decided on NTP's patents.
The judge ruled, "Valid patents would be rendered meaningless if an infringing party were allowed to circumvent the patents' enforcement by incessantly delaying and prolonging court proceedings, which have already resulted in a finding of infringement." He said he will request for briefs and set a hearing date to deal with NTP's request for damages against RIM and an injunction on sale of BlackBerry wireless email device in the U.S.
RIM may now have to pay as much as $1 billion to reach a new settlement to avoid shutting down the BlackBerry service in the U.S, which accounts for nearly 70 per cent of BlackBerry sales. The company said it will try to get the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.
The two companies had announced in March last that they are settling their four-year-old patent infringement case through a payment by RIM of $450 million to NTP. The settlement did not take effect as legal issues on NTP's claim on the patents continued and remained unsettled.
Judge Spencer had issued an injunction against RIM in 2003 in a suit filed by NTP in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia and a jury found the infringement charge to be true. But it was stayed pending appeal. An appeals court diluted the infringement ruling but upheld some of NTP's claims.
RIM contends that an injunction would be inappropriate for reasons such as the ongoing patent office proceedings, public interest concerns and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to hear an appeal in the eBay Inc. v. MercExchange case that addresses the use of injunctions in patent suits.
In a related development RIM said it is developing a technology that will provide a workaround and run the service. Its customers are worried as the devices have become indispensable in day-to-day work. Among the worried customer is the U.S. government itself, which has thousands of employees with BlackBerries.
Posted
on : Thu, 01 Dec 2005 13:10 GMT | General News
By : Rob Davis
|
| |
| Related |
|
|
|
