RIM loses vital court battle

A BIZARRE game of brinksmanship is being played out by Canadian firm, Research In Motion (RIM) which manufactures the Blackberry email terminals. RIM has managed to get its shares suspended as of Wednesday (30th November).

Back in March 2005, RIM and NTP had announced a settlement over alleged patent infringements which apparently involved RIM paying NTP around $450 million to go away. Somewhere along the line, things have gone horribly wrong and RIM was left trying to force NTP to accept the settlement.

Unfortunately a US federal judge has now denied RIM's request to enforce the settlement. This would seem to leave the door wide open for NTP to try to block Blackberry sales in the USA. In the meantime, RIM's shares have been suspended on the Nasdaq stock market.

It appears that RIM had tried to halt proceedings brought ny NTP, pending the US's Patent and Trademark Office's investigation into NTP's patents. But that ploy has now failed.

That leaves RIM CEO, Jim Balsillie, trying to pursue a "workaround'' which involves technology designed to bypass the patents NTP has acquired.

That's a bit of a risky strategy since the US market is vital to RIM's sales. No-one seems to have taken into account the fact that most Blackberry emails go via RIM's servers - which are based in North America. If NTP got them shut down, RIM would be in deep do-dahs.

Anyway, the most likely outcome is that RIM will have to pay NTP considerably more than $450 million. Most observers are simply doubling that number and rounding the figure out to $1 billion.

It's all a bit of a major cock-up really. µ

See Also
RIM O'Blackberry declares ruling on patents
Blackberry sued again
RIM, Nokia, World+Dog sued over phone network patent
RIM pays $450 million in Blackberry patent deal
Canada wants to save Blackberry
Blackberry way turns profit into loss