HUMAN LAW

BlackBerry maker starts winning patent disputes

Further to my previous posts, Infoconomy reports that Research in Motion, the Canadian company that manufactures the Blackberry, has won a ruling in the patent division of the High Court in London. InPro, a Luxembourg patent holding company, has had its claims that RIM had violated its own patents thrown out.

The case was brought against both RIM UK and T-Mobile UK by Inpro Licensing, which asserted the two companies had used proxy-server technology in their mobile email devices that infringed upon a patent it had acquired in 1996.

If InPro had been successful, it was possible that all the Blackberry users in the UK would have had their machines shut down. Court documents show that there were 375,000 last summer and this number is likely to have increased substantially since then.

The company behind the hand-held Blackberry email device has won a victory in the UK courts, just a day after it won a critical battle in the United States, where its operations are threatened with a possible shut down.

In an unrelated dispute to the UK case, NTP claims RIM is infringing various patents. On Tuesday, the US Patent and Trademark Office threw out NTP's patent claims.

As a result, the case between NTP and RIM being heard in a US District Court now hangs in the balance.

All my previous posts regarding this matter have been negative from RIM's perspective so it makes a change to provide positive news for RIM. 

BlackBerry maker - The noose tightens

Further to my previous post, there has been additional news regarding the Blackberry patent litigation.

Yesterday the US Supreme Court rejected a petition from BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion for a rehearing of its patent-infringement case.

The Canadian maker of the popular wireless e-mail device has been locked in litigation against NTP Inc., a patent-holding company that holds the licences for the technology.

It increases pressure upon RIM to reach a settlement which could cost $1 billion.

As I have previously posted, RIM may face a court-ordered shut down of most of its 4 million BlackBerrys in the United States if it cannot settle its case with NTP.

The firm had wanted the Court to reverse a ruling which found that the technology behind BlackBerry violated patents held by the NTP.

Can a patent lawyer destroy the US economy?

Further to my previous post regarding the Blackberry litigation, there is a piece in the currrent edition of Fortune Magazine.

Within the United States, the company NTP is close to victory in a four year old patent litigation with Research in Motion, the maker of BlackBerry.

Big deal - but according to Fortune Magazine as it went to press "RIM faced the real likelihood of a court-ordered BlackBerry black out(government devices would be exempt) unless it agrees to pay essentially whatever sum NTP names, which some analysts think will approach ten figures." 

As Fortune observe "What would Osama Bin Ladin give to be able to knock out every BlackBerry in America and achieve an instant, sweeping disruption of commerce?"

We will have to see whether the doomsday scenario is played out or whether some compromise can appear at the last minute.

What is interesting is that no one has claimed that RIM ever copied NTP's patents. As NTP staked its claim first, and even if RIM later independently wandered into the same area, it is an infringer.

Ignorance is not a defence. 

The bid to patent cereal.

There was an interesting article in the Sunday Telegraph(6th November 2005) under the title "Bran hits the fan in US cereal cafe wars."

A potential legal battle awaits as lawyers for the Chicago based, Cereality chain have now submitted a 40 point claim to the United States Patent Office, covering how the company makes and markets a bowl of cereal.

An opponent of the patent application, Gavin Baker comments that the issue is "whether people should be able to claim an exclusive right on mundane ideas any eight-year-old could think of. When someone is trying to take out a patent on mixing cereals and adding milk, that is wrong."      

The application itself is quite broad and includes the firms' uniforms, the kitchen cabinet display area and the way that the cereals are mixed.   

Copies of the application have been sent to rival businesses with the warning that infringement could lead to triple damages.

In turn, opponents of the application have said that these legal moves are an attempt to bully the others out of business.

Do you have an Intellectual Property strategy?

One of the things that strikes about most organisations which I deal with is their absence of any form of IP strategy.

Most firms do not have one.

The only time when an IP strategy does come into their thoughts is when it is too late.

The potential costs of getting it wrong can be huge.

Consider this article - The US Supreme Court has refused an attempt by the Blackberry maker Research in Motion(RIM) to suspend an injunction in a patent dispute over its handheld computer.   

The decision raises the prospects of a lower court enforcing an injunction against RIM which would force it to step selling and servicing the devices in the US.

The fact that in excess of 2 million people use the Blackberry within the US and the US market represents 70% of RIM's revenues speaks volumes for the potential damage to the organisation.

For the sake of RIM, I hope that there was a sound IP strategy in place at the time that they were developing the Blackberry and they have an effective legal team dealing with the litigation.