Great article @: http://www.upi.com/Hi-Tech/view.php?StoryID=20051202-100340-5928r
“RIM continues to play Russian roulette with BlackBerry consumers and partners,” Robert Green Sterne, a partner with the law firm of Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox, told Wireless World. “They need to respect the patent rights of NTP, the inventor and property owner. Instead, RIM is acting like a patent squatter by pursuing a scorched earth legal strategy that will, in the end, burn its users and stakeholders.”
I think that sums it up nicely!Also, from the today’s NY Times:
“R.I.M., which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, promises it has a solution that will keep its beloved BlackBerries humming even in the face of an injunction. While most analysts view the prospects of a shutdown as unlikely, they have little faith in the proposed solution, which has potential legal pitfalls of its own. What’s more, the history of the struggle between the companies means that no outcome is certain. (R.I.M. declined to comment.)”
“If NTP wins an injunction to end BlackBerry service and R.I.M. keeps BlackBerry service operating through the new software, Mr. Stout said his company would ask for an immediate judicial review of the changes. If that hearing finds R.I.M. is still infringing on NTP’s patents, Mr. Stout said NTP would ask that R.I.M. and every wireless carrier in the United States offering BlackBerry service be cited for contempt.””R.I.M. still has other legal options. The United States Patent and Trademark Office is reviewing eight of NTP’s patents and has issued preliminary rulings against the company in several cases. But final rulings are unlikely to come for months and a two-part appeal process could extend the review for years. In any case, NTP needs only a single patent upheld to gain an injunction.””
“If this goes as far as an injunction, I won’t feel sorry for them,” Mr. Stout said. “No BlackBerry customer can say that NTP didn’t offer a license. If R.I.M. turns that down, they have no one to blame but themselves for the consequences. BlackBerry users should tell R.I.M. to stop fooling around with their service and take the license.”This is like a great, public divorce battle and Blackberry users are the kids stuck in the middle.
