Court Reverses Some RIM Infringement Findings, End Still Not Near

from the keep-the-lawyers-busy dept

An appeals court today reversed some findings against RIM in its ongoing patent dispute with NTP, and sent the case back to a lower court. The court overturned a previous finding that RIM had infringed NTP's "method" patents, but upheld that it violated patents the company has for its email system. The appeals court also rescinded an order from the lower court's judge for RIM to stop US sales of its devices. The upshot of all this? More of the same, with no real end in sight. RIM had decided several months ago to settle with NTP for $450 million, but the deal later unraveled amid speculation that RIM was holding out while the Patent Office reviewed NTP's patents, several of which have been tossed out. However, one report today says the reason for the latest impasse was NTP's demands for more money to cover Blackberry service on non-RIM devices. But, since NTP isn't busy with anything productive, like, say, making products based on their patents, they plan to pretty much appeal anything and everything -- putting the end of this long-running debacle outside the forseeable future.

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