Push email gets another patent suit

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 1 Feb 2006 at 14:15

Push email specialist Visto has filed a patent suit against Good Technology, the main rival to Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the BlackBerry email handheld.

The suit, filed in the US District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, alleges Good's products and services infringe on four patents.

Visto is seeking a permanent injunction against the use of Good's products and services and unspecified monetary damages. Good's push email service has been adopted in Palm, HP and Motorola devices.

The suit follows a similar filing against Microsoft in December, with much the same allegations and seeking similar results.

Visto too has close connections with NTP: the latter has an equity stake in Visto and the two have tied up cross-licensing deals to use each others' patents. NTP has filed a patent infringement suit against RIM and is hoping that Visto's litigation will lend credence to its own courtroom saga.

The USPTO recently issued non-final judgements that two of the patents in question were invalid. But that doesn't get RIM out of the hole and the potential closure of its US service.

Visto's CEO Brian A. Bogosian, Visto was keen to touch on the BlackBerry issue in the Good Technology suit announcement. 'There are justifiable marketplace jitters about whether BlackBerry service will be shut down by a federal court next month,' he said. 'With Visto, all users, including BlackBerry users have a safe harbor alternative to RIM that offers protection from intellectual property risks. Good Technology, like other late entrants to this market, has no patents directed to wireless e-mail and very clearly infringes on our long-held intellectual property.'