Posted on 11/16/2005 5:12:39 PM PST by 2Jim_Brown
CHICAGO, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- The feds are intervening in a 5-year-old patent case against Research in Motion Ltd., the Canadian-based developer of BlackBerry, arguing in court papers filed last week that the networked wireless computing devices are essential and a network outage could cause severe problems for the U.S. government.
"The injunction would, literally, prevent RIM from providing the services that would be essential for the federal government, as well as state and local governments, to continue their use of the BlackBerry devices," the U.S. Department of Justice argued in a court filing. By Gene Koprowski
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
Polaroids are still used for a number of things, though digital is gradually replacing them. Actually, it's interesting that nobody's picked up any of the instant-photography stuff whose patents have expired. I would think there would be uses for some of it, though I have no idea what the raw materials costs are.
I'm serious.
I'm sure this action by the Feds is just their way of letting the judge know that whatever remedy he prescribes, it should not include putting RIM out of business completely.
On a related note, maybe this is why when I installed the BlackBerry Enterprise Server software and 12 devices for a customer last month, Cingular gave us the $4000 software from BlackBerry for free.
"Treo 600, actually. "
I have a 650 - dunno how i ever lived without it!
I'm weirded out that the US Fed Gov is totally reliant on a product from a company owned and run by furriners!
Do you use a SD card with yours, and if so, what capacity? How well does it work? We have a 256 MB one and may upgrade to the 1GB.
HOLD EVERYTHING... I have prior art! In the family scrap book... Me and my bro....
" Do you use a SD card with yours, and if so, what capacity? How well does it work? We have a 256 MB one and may upgrade to the 1GB."
2 gb sd card. For 2 reasons... 1) so move programs onto the card and out of main memory (theres a few programs to do this with), and of course for mp3 files i play with ptunes. :) I can also carry large work related docs like .doc and .pdf files on there, and save pics and video to the card.
I figured it was worth paying now for the 2gb card rather than get a smaller card now and another card later.
Oh btw, reason I have the phone period is that my job requires a lot of travel. For example, between now and the end of Jan I'll be in Portland OR, San Diego CA, Breckenridge CO, Pittsburgh PA, and Austin TX. A pda/phone is indespensible to a road warrior!
Update:
US judge deals RIM blow in BlackBerry patent case
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. on Wednesday was pushed closer to a possible shutdown of its U.S. mobile e-mail service after a judge refused to delay a patent infringement case and rejected a disputed settlement with patent holder NTP Inc.
U.S. District Judge James Spencer said he would request briefs and set a hearing date to deal with the remaining issues of injunctive relief and appropriate damages against RIM.
"Valid patents would be rendered meaningless if an infringing party were allowed to circumvent the patents' enforcement by incessantly delaying and prolonging court proceedings, which have already resulted in a finding of infringement," Spencer said in his ruling.
Still pending before Spencer is a request by NTP to move forward with an injunction that would halt U.S. sales of the BlackBerry and shut its service.
Spencer granted an injunction in 2003 after the patent-holding company successfully sued RIM in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia, but the ruling was stayed pending appeal.
Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM and NTP, of McLean Va., reached the outlines of a $450 million settlement in March, but the deal fell apart over the details.
An appeals court in August scaled back an infringement ruling against RIM, but upheld some of NTP's patent infringement claims.
Shares in RIM were halted pending news. A RIM spokeswoman did not immediately return calls and e-mails seeking comment.
If you read the article correctly, which it appears that the headline writer did not, you see that the Feds consider the service essential to the use of the Blackberry ( well duh) ... NOT that the use of the Blackberry was essential to the government.
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