Monitoring The NTP/RIM Lawsuit November 11, 2005
(Update: My latest post on the NTP/RIM lawsuit, and see the “Blackberry” tag under “Categories” over on the right for other posts). My timeline of the NTP/RIM lawsuit is online as well.
From Canada’s “National Post”:
The U.S. government waded into the high-stakes legal battle between Research In Motion Ltd. and patent collector NTP Inc. yesterday, saying a possible U.S. ban of the popular BlackBerry wireless e-mail device could put essential government services in jeopardy.
“The injunction would literally prevent RIM from providing the services that would be essential for the federal government, as well as state and local governments, to continue their use of the BlackBerry devices,” the U.S. Department of Justice stated in a court filing.
The government department wants 90 days notice before a U.S. trial court enforces the potentially crippling injunction on BlackBerry devices in the United States to ensure public workers can keep using the devices
With a couple hundred Blackberry users at the company I’m at - including myself - I’m obviously “somewhat interested” in this lawsuit. I live by my Blackberry - it’s my phone, my PDA, where I make notes to myself when I think of things, what I use to browse news websites when I’m killing time but not at a computer. It’s a core component of my personal implementation of David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology. If NTP prevails in this, it ain’t going to be pretty. Corporately, yes, we could move to Windows Mobile - we have all the infrastructure in place. Personally though, having been a PDA user for a while, starting with Windows CE Pocket, then CE Handheld, jumping ship to a Psion and then a Palm Vx, before succumbing to a HP iPaq, and then abandoning THAT and moving back to paper, before finally getting a Blackberry - the Blackberry to me is everything I need in a communications package, and it “just works”.
Back to the article:
The U.S. government also said the extra time is necessary so the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office can reconsider the validity of wireless e-mail patents held by NTP. The Patent Office has already overturned the five disputed patents filed by since-deceased inventor Thomas Campana Jr., although NTP has asked the patent office to reconsider its decision.
Good. I’m not going to get into a political debate on patents here; I’m just glad that the PTO seems to be siding with RIM so far.
Incidentally, NTP had previously agreed to a $450 million settlement fee. That deal fell apart with disagreement on the settlement terms. Guys? That’s a hell of a lot of money. Take it, and let us get back to working with our Crackberry’s, eh?
technorati tags: Blackberry