Posted on 03/03/2006 2:46:00 PM PST by July 4th
NEW YORK (AP) -- Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry e-mail device, Friday announced it has settled its long-running patent dispute with a small Virginia-based firm, averting a possible court-ordered shutdown of the BlackBerry system. RIM has paid NTP $612.5 million in a "full and final settlement of all claims," the companies said.
The settlement ends a period of anxiety for BlackBerry users. At a hearing last week, NTP had asked a federal court in Richmond, Va., for an injunction blocking the continued use of key technologies underpinning BlackBerry's wireless e-mail service.
RIM, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, had put away $450 million in escrow for a settlement. It will record the additional $162.5 million in its fourth-quarter results, it said.
MicroSoft/Bill Gates bought MSDOS, did this mean he couldn't defent his ownership of the operating system?
...DEFEND his ownership...
Gotta go, kids are waiting.
Please keep the thread warm for me...
BBC NEWS version ...
Settlement ends Blackberry case
The maker of the Blackberry device has reached a $612.5m (£349m) settlement to end a legal dispute that could have closed the service in the US.
Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM) said on Friday that the deal with American software firm NTP represented a "full and final settlement".
NTP, which had claimed RIM stole its technology, had tried to get the Blackberry service shut in the US.
The popular portable e-mail device has three million American users.
'Unfettered right'
"All terms of the agreement have been finalised and the litigation against RIM has been dismissed by a court order this afternoon," said RIM.
"The agreement eliminates the need for any further court proceedings or decisions relating to damages or injunctive relief.
"NTP grants RIM an unfettered right to continue its business, including its Blackberry-related business."
The settlement brings to end four years of legal dispute in the US between the two companies.
RIM said it had already put aside $450m for a possible settlement with NTP, and that the additional $162.5m would be recorded in its next quarterly report due in April.
The overall $612.5m settlement compares to the firm's total cash reserves of $1.8bn.
Global popularity
Last year the firms agreed a tentative settlement, but the agreement subsequently collapsed, taking the case all the way to the US Supreme Court.
Earlier this month, the US government asked a federal judge to hold off from a possible shutdown of the Blackberry service, because of the system's popularity among key government employees.
RIM had argued that a shutdown of Blackberry services would impair critical public services.
The Blackberry now has 4.3 million global users.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/4773006.stm
Published: 2006/03/03 22:53:15 GMT
© BBC MMVI
I have no idea, but my son is going to be an IP lawyer, so I can ask him. ;o)
Yep... I think so. A way to get it behind them and stop scaring away new customers.
If you're right, RIM just paid over a half a billion dollars they didn't need to.
Of course he can. He bought it and used it and made a bazillion dollars.
This is unlike the case in point, where NTP did ~not~ create or invent or do anything at all, or from the look of it, even buy out someone else's idea that was worth anything. Well... worth 600M this time around.
There is that.
Great! I will now be able to CONTINUE to work 24/7/365...
Sorry, but that's simply not accurate. NTP was founded by Thomas Campana, Jr., an electrical engineer who invented the technology of push email delivery. Push, BTW, is the exact technology that made the Blackberry so successful, because it eliminated the steps of connecting to a server, logging on to that server, and retrieving any waiting email. With push, the handheld device only has to wait for the server to send the email.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a company that licenses intellectual property that it owns. Nothing. Campana didn't have the money to take his invention to market, so he elected to go the licensing route instead. IP is just as real a product as anything else. There's also nothing whatever wrong with going after someone who comes along and steals your property, then thumbs their nose at you when you ask them to either stop using it or pay up.
That's exactly what happened in this case. And BTW, both Nokia and Good Technology have properly licensed NTP technology.
MM
I don't have any quarrel with the idea of IP and people being able to profit from their ideas.
The patent office doesn't seem, so far, to agree with NTP. This to me is the key piece. If I've mischaracterized NTP I'll be happy to admit that, but I don't think so just yet. It would depend entirely on the specifics of the patent application and the actual system being used by RIM. Merely claiming a stake in any sort of "push" system doesn't cut it.
It's like how you can't patent the idea of an airplane, but you can patent a particular design, shape and structure of a particular wing, or engine, or whatever. RIM would have to have taken NTP's push system exactly, and there doesn't seem to be any evidence that they did.
Boy you aint kidding.
I've got the Treo700w, not a blackberry but same basic interface, even use it to read/post to the free republic, anyway after getting it I got thumb trouble.
I now do things a little differently but even then have to not use it to much or problems set in.
There are no other standards.
If you haven't looked at the patents at issue, I'd urge you to spend a few minutes doing so. (I've read countless articles on the issue, and it's odd that I had to go on a specific search to finally find one that actually mentioned the patents at issue. I've linked them below for your convenience. As you'll see, these are quite technical patents that go into far more detail than many a valid patent that has stood for years. They are not "airplane ideas.") This is not something Campana threw together and filed away so he could someday sue someone. The man developed a technology, plain and simple. He didn't have the money to take it to market, so he and a patent attorney formed a holding company to license and protect his intellectual property. RIM came along, used that technology, and then blew him off.
RIM would have to have taken NTP's push system exactly, and there doesn't seem to be any evidence that they did.
Uh, there is enormous evidence that they did exactly, precisely that. There's the issue of a jury trial whose verdict stood all the way to the steps of the Supreme Court, saying that it's exactly what RIM did. There's a boatload of evidence that drove that verdict and enabled it to stand strongly enough that SCOTUS refused to even re-examine the case.
The patent office doesn't seem, so far, to agree with NTP. This to me is the key piece.
Huh? What about the fact that the PTO issued every single one of the patents? And it's not like just one of them happened to slip through. Every one of them went through the arduous process of prosecution before the PTO. (I've done it. Personally. "Arduous" is an understatement on even a "low" tech; I can only imagine what it was like to get these through the system.) Why is it that so many people, yourself included, seem so willing to totally ignore the fact that these patents were issued years ago, and have been in full force since then, despite a full frontal assault in court challenging their validity? The PTO backpedals and you automatically assume that now they're right, yet then they were so obviously wrong? Remember, during the trial, RIM brought every argument imaginable forward in an attempt to convince the jury that the patents should've never been issued. They failed.
I'm not saying that you harbor this particular misunderstanding, but there are many people who think the patents involved are just now working their way through the PTO and are being rejected. That's not remotely accurate. They've already been through. They were all issued. They were all challenged with great rigor. They all withstood. They are valid patents in every sense and will remain so unless and until NTP exhausts all of its appeals over any retro-decision on the part of the PTO. These appeals will be first within the PTO and then through the courts, and they could easily last all the way to 2012, at which time the patents will reach the ripe old age of expiration.
I'm as anti-frivolous-lawsuit as anyone on the planet, but that's just not what happened here. A very smart and forward thinking man invented a technology that proved to be of immense use to the public. RIM snatched it up and implemented it as its own, then just ignored NTP when they showed up and said, "Excuse me, but you can't do that." And instead of settling years ago for a comparative pittance by paying the guy a fair royalty, they continued to ignore him. Having read up on the issue, the RIM CEO comes across to me as a testosterone-charged, highly charismatic man who thinks he can never lose, that he does what he wants and always wins and to hell with anybody who gets in his way. He was wrong.
MM
I had found the patent documentation, and started looking through it, but frankly it wasn't a fun read. :-)
I'll take another look at it though. You're making a pretty good argument. I'll give it a shot.
I'll take another look at it though. You're making a pretty good argument. I'll give it a shot.
Ha! Yeah, patents are rarely gripping. In fact, if you're having trouble sleeping, keep a couple on the nightstand.
MM
When you consider most judges come from the DOJ and have ZERO knowledge of the business or real world, it is not hard to find neophyte judges.
Often times, judicial achievement is just a different form of politicing.
My company gave me one 2 weeks ago....amazing!
BTW, whether you agree with me in the end or not, it's nice to run into someone in the online world who will back up and at least re-evaluate a position. I shall use your example as a reminder for myself.
MM
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