RIM Loses NTP Patent Case, Barred From Selling Blackberries

from the injunction,-no-injunction dept

RIM, makers of the popular Blackberry handheld device (and no strangers to filing aggressive patent litigation) found themselves on the losing end of a patent lawsuit today. Despite even pleas from the US Congress, a judge has ruled that RIM has violated NTP's patents and owes them $53 million. More disturbingly, the judge granted (and then immediately stayed) an injunction saying that RIM could not sell Blackberries in the US until 2012. The stay on the injunction was necessary, because everyone already knows that RIM has probably already personally handed in their appeal of the decision. Still, this is another bad patent decision. Once again, it's our good old patent system, creating incentives for innovation by giving money to a patent hoarding company that hasn't built anything, and preventing those who have actually done something from selling it. What a wonderful system.

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