Mixed results for Blackberry court battle

By Steve Malone

Posted on 15 Dec 2004 at 16:01

Research In Motion (RIM), the manufacturer of the popular Blackberry mobile, has been left with a curate's egg to mull over for Christmas. A US appeal court has found that the company has infringed the patent of NTP but has lifted the injunction which would have prevented RIM from selling Blackberrys in the US.

NTP Inc had claimed that it holds a patent for wireless email going back to 1993 - a claim disputed by RIM. However, a Virginia jury found that RIM had indeed infringed NTP's patent and awarded damages of $23 million. With additional legal costs and interest this later rose to almost $59 million, and rising.

More damaging to RIM was an injunction made by the court which prevented it selling its products in the US.

The appeals court has now held that the infringement verdict was correct. However, because the appeal court agreed with RIM over one key aspect of the decision concerning the correct definition of 'originating processor'. RIM had argued that 'originating processor' only referred to transmissions from the original device whereas NTP had countered that the message was provided with additional 'original' information at each retransmission point with routing information etc.

The appeals court has returned the case back to the lower court for reconsideration. In the light of the appeal court decision, much of NTP's case - and the level of damages - is likely to be reduced.

The chances still remain that eventually, RIM and NTP will come to a deal. The fact that the appeals court agreed with the jury on the substance of the infringement is likely to strengthen NTP's determination to strike a hard bargain.