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RIM Wins Ground in Patent War

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thu Feb 23, 2006 06:44 PM
from the fire-in-the-hole dept.
Patents Communications Handhelds
ttyp0 writes "The maker of the BlackBerry on Wednesday gained some ground as it fights a battle over patents with NTP, which is trying to shut down most sales and service of the portable e-mail device in the United States. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a final rejection of one of five disputed patents owned by NTP, another step in a long process that Research In Motion Ltd. hopes will allow it to keep operating its U.S. BlackBerry service. NTP, a closely held patent holding company, has successfully sued RIM for infringement of its patents. I've been following the case closely as our company is about to invest in BES, a costly venture indeed."
+ -
story

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[+] RIM Settles Long-Standing Blackberry Claim 295 comments
David Jao writes "Research in Motion has agreed to pay 612.5 million dollars for a 'full and final settlement of all claims' resulting from the NTP patent lawsuit against the makers of BlackBerry. According to the article, the settlement is 'on the low end of expectations', perhaps because the patents in question had earlier been preliminarily ruled invalid by the US Patents & Trademarks Office." Many article submitters characterize this move as 'giving in' to NTP's tactics. What do you think?
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  • BES cost (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23 2006, @06:50PM (#14789133)
    "I've been following the case closely as our company is about to invest in BES, a costly venture indeed."

    Yes, purchasing BES is expensive. But you can get some good deals, like my company did, where you buy 10 Blackberries and get a copy of BES for free.

    • Re:BES cost (Score:5, Interesting)

      by azcoffeehabit (533327) on Thursday February 23 2006, @06:56PM (#14789175)
      Another option is to use the Exchange mobile services and run your own messaging servers that way, nice thing is that it ties directly into your corporate messaging and keeps your emails on your servers. This option also gives you a wider range of devices that you can use (and probably even your existing cell phones if they were made anytime in the last 2 years).

      Now if someone knows about a Linux solution it would make the setup even sweeter. :)
      • > This option also gives you a wider range of devices that you can use

        For some reason I suspect this wider range of devices all run an OS from a single company, which will remain unnamed.
        • You sound like a marketdroid.

          Like a friend of mine said recently on this subject, "I don't care about pushing or pulling as long as it gets me where I am going".

          There is useably no difference between a phone that polls every 2-3 minutes and a blackberry. If a message is make-or-break-must-read and two minutes is too long, it probbaly shouldn't have been in an email in the first place.

          • The difference between push and polling is battery use on the handheld. Push increases battery life, which is always welcome.
            • Care to back that up with a link?

              If you have a Blackberry, your phone's radio is constantly on and connected to the server. Otherwise the push functionality would not work.

              With a polling phone, the radio only has to power up every poll interval to make a connection.

              Since the radio is the main battery draw of any phone, not the CPU, I would hardly think a blackberry would be easier on batteries than a polling phone.

              • Since the radio is the main battery draw of any phone

                No, the transmitter is the main battery draw of any phone, or any portable radio system for that matter. Push saves battery life because the handheld device doesn't have to fire up the transmitter to find out there's nothing to do.

                • BS. The blackberry packet radio sends positive connectivity messages off to the towers. This is how the protocol ensures delivery of the data.

                  Why do you think, the tower just beams out the email and hopes the device is connected?

          • You sound like a marketdroid.

            This discussion is about the mobile messaging market isn't it?

            Some people do not know that there are alternatives. Even if the alternative is Microsoft it is still an alternative.

            If a company is already using said MS product than it quite possibly makes sense that they use a feature of that product instead of spending the extra money on new devices AND a service charge?

            Now with an open source project thrown into the mix that meets the same need there isn't much ne

  • Where's the beef? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thunderlizard (947581) on Thursday February 23 2006, @06:57PM (#14789176)
    There isn't much news to this story -- and the submitter quoted close to half of the article in their summary...

    This really isn't great news for the Blackberry, because RIM has already lost the original suit from NTP -- and as the article states, it could take *years* for the validity of the remaining 4 patents to be finalized... NTP could drag this process out in court for quite some time, all the while putting pressure on RIM or possibly finding a judge that will grant some type of injunction.

    Sometimes it doesn't matter if you're right; it matters more if you're around for the long haul. After all, what's the use of being an excellent boxer if you can't last past 3 rounds?

    NTP has the edge here...
  • albeit in a Slashback [slashdot.org]. :) Anyways, good news I suppose.

  • The Justice Dept. (Score:5, Funny)

    by paulthomas (685756) on Thursday February 23 2006, @06:57PM (#14789179) Journal
    A more apt classification would have been:

    From the the-department-of-justice-shant-be-deprived-of-bla ckberries dept.
    • Crack the jokes alll you want, but NTP specifically exempted Government, First Responders, some Military, and Medical fields, to prevent bad publicity (OMG NTP is taking away communciations from First Repsonders who need it the most) and vested interest in the government.

      I work in a government position and we run our own BES. We couldn't give a crap whether or not this case goes in favor of NTP or RIM.

      ...and that's just how they want it to be.

  • Too bad! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wish for RIM and all associated workarounds to cease to exist. Honestly, how many of you have Blackberries for anything other than work? I, for one, would welcome our new blood pressure lowering Blackberry-less overlords.

  • RIM litigated first (Score:4, Interesting)

    by augustz (18082) on Thursday February 23 2006, @07:01PM (#14789210) Homepage
    RIM started this whole intellectual property mess. Some of you remember them making lots of noise about protecting their IP against all the scummy folks who were using it.

    Of course, as with all things software patent related, it turns out that others had also patented similar things. And whamo, their story changes.

    Anyone have the details of this history? It's something that seems to have been forgotten in this story. I know RIM sued at least Handspring and Good, but I'm really curious about the threats of litigation that got NTP to go after them.

    Instead of RIM threatened by bogus patents, this story could very well be company that litigated others out of the market faces own medicine.

    I don't remember this well enough though, someone has got to have the history in a better format. All I remember is that RIM was running around talking about patents from way way back.

    • Re:RIM litigated first (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What the hell does that have to do with the merits of the current case? This eye-for-an-eye philosophy will only further complicate the matter intellectual property as it relates to technology.

      Why didn't you *simply* ask for clarification about the NTP & RIM history, rather than add noise?

      • Re:RIM litigated first (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JohnFluxx (413620) on Thursday February 23 2006, @07:47PM (#14789425)
        I don't think it's eye-for-an-eye philosophy, but more of a karma philosophy. Many of us are at least smirking that RIM that lived by the patents dies by the patents, as they say. They tried sue others for stupid IP infringements, and now they are being brought down by another company suing them for stupid IP infringements. If that's not karma, I don't know what is :)

        • If that's not karma, I don't know what is :)
          Karma is getting moderated +5 Insightful

          :notices he's getting the evil eye:

          and not doing mean stuff to people.
          That is also Karma

          • Thanks for the information. What were the other cases though?
            • Look at the actual patent before spewing out gibberish and put calculator keypads and Blackberry keypads in the same sentence.

              It dictates the keys in very specific shapes, sizes, and relative arrangements - which I suspect is the result of some serious UI research.

              It's not "just a miniature keyboard".

  • From an engineering perspective (Score:3, Insightful)

    by troll -1 (956834) on Thursday February 23 2006, @07:12PM (#14789257)
    Hasn't this dispute been going on forever? The sad irony is that if you add up all the legal resources consumed by this case and divert them to pure technology you could completely reinvent and develop the entire system.

    How does all this help to promote the progress of science and useful arts as set forth in Article I, secition 8 of the US Constitution and for which patents are supposed to have their purpose?

    In some perverse way Blackberry's troubles may be a deserved lesson in not adopting an open standard.

    Even if Blackberry wins this, they'll eventually be hit with a "hot coffee" musculoskeletal disorder [kron.com] lawsuit.

    So what's the answer? More lawyers, less engineers and invertors?
    • "Hasn't this dispute been going on forever? The sad irony is that if you add up all the legal resources consumed by this case and divert them to pure technology you could completely reinvent and develop the entire system."

      yes but then what would the lawyers do? They need to eat too you know.

      Anyway it's called the US legal system. It's the biggest joke in the world. Look at how long the SCO case has been going on. Following that case taught me that the US legal system is a like a hot dog factory. You don't w
      • It takes 3 branches of Government to make the US system. All the courts do is interpret the laws that the legislative / executive make. It isn't the court's job to make laws but try to figure the intent of those that do. So don't blame our court system when it is really the legislative system that writes crappy laws. Congress has always had the ability to rid us of these types of lawsuits by simply redoind patent laws to exclude software patents. The only thing stopping them from doing that is the software
  • And you're running MS Exchange -- Don't. Get Goodlink. It is 100 times better, works smoothly, and has a TRUE sync. And it's pretty worry-free. I have used them side by side for about 2 years now, and Goodlink just works better in spades. Administration, upgrades, deployment, etc... it's all better and simpler.

    However if you are not on MS Exchange, then of course that would necessitate the RIM solution.
  • I'll admit to a notion unpopular in these realms - I do think patents are good. If someone invests time, money, and ingenuity to create a new commercial product, then they should reap the benefits of that in exchange for making the invention public. Sadly, the current system does not live up to this ideal.

    The rise of lawyer-dominated patent holding companies, such as NTP, suggests that the current patent system doesn't do enough to drive mass production of new inventions. These lawsuit-happy companies

    • To discourage "thought-sweatshops" that just invent without investing, I'd bring back the working model requirement for granting a patent. Forcing the inventor to spend real money to create that which was thought up would both encourage commercialization -- pushing the invention to the prototype stage -- and discourage indiscriminate legal land-grabs with blankets of frivolous patents.

      I don't disagree that this is a good idea, however I don't think it would help a whole lot for some of these patents, as

        • The cost of developing software is anything but negligible.

          Yes, but you don't have to create a fully working product in order to have a "working model" for a software patent. All that you would have to do is create something simple which demonstrates the invention being patented in effect.

          I've done it. Like I said, one of my previous employers decided to file patents in two countries for two "inventions" I created which working there. One of them I came up with one night at home, while watching TV.

  • > The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a final rejection of one of five disputed patents owned by NTP

    Does this make Feb 24 2006 legal gatherings moot regarding RIM network shutdown?
    • What about the other four patents? Only one out of five was rejected.
      • The reason is that this is too timely to not be a gesture from the patent board regarding their potential standing on all patents. It takes no more than common sense for the judge to take todays ruling into account.

        Regardlesss, tomorrows ruling has serious implications not just for RIM but for IP patents in general. Being Canadian, I have a special place for RIM but at the same time they are getting a bit of what they delivered themselves.
        • Correction: It takes no more than common sense for the judge to not take todays ruling into account with.

          [:..itchy.mouse.finger..:]
        • Actually, I'm Canadian too, and hope RIM wins this whole fiasco.

          But that's besides the point. AFAIK, IANAL, blah blah blah, gestures mean nothing under the law. Under the law, there is still four valid patents which could cause an injunction against RIM.
    • There are still 4 patents that are under review. So, tomorrow is still the big day. Even if NTP is granted an injunction, don't expect to see Blackberries go dark. There will have to be some sort of transition period, say 30 days. It'll be interesting to watch RIM race to migrate all of their US customers to the patent-safe workaround (assuming that the workaround does in fact exist).

  • Write your congressman (Score:4, Informative)

    by GrEp (89884) <crb002 AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday February 23 2006, @07:38PM (#14789383) Homepage Journal
    Write your congressmen and ask them to drag these patent examiners in for questioning:

    William G. Trost:
      6,317,592 and 6,067,451 Electronic mail system with RF communications to mobile processors

    Stephen Chin
      6,272,190 System for wireless transmission and receiving of information and method of operation thereof
      6,198,783 System for wireless serial transmission of encoded information
    • Wow. I started a flamewar :)

      Those regulations seem to be departmental policy based on judical precident. I didn't see any laws cited that would prevent them from testifying if given a supena by congress.

      • And now I demonstrate that you don't know shit about what you're babbling about.

        It is the policy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that its employees, including patent examiners, will not appear as witnesses or give testimony in legal proceedings, except under the conditions specified in 37 CFR Part 104, Subpart C

        You're not interesting, you're ignorant.

        Okay, I'll bite on this one: exactly what does the USPTO's official policy on hows its employees must go about responding to subpoenas
        • Talk about a certifiable, excitable, ignorant fucktard... You're doing the equivalent of jumping up and down, swinging your arms and flapping those big gums whilst shouting "Hey everyudddy! My mom dropped me on my head!"

          In addition to being flat wrong, you're doing precisely this, as an anonymous coward.

        • When people come in and start flaming people while saying things along the lines of "software patents are awesome, and you all suck" or "Microsoft kicks Linux butt", you just mark them Foe on Slashdot or killfile them on Usenet. Life is too short to get in flamewars when there are other people out there that post reasoned responses.

          Generally, anyone calling you a "fucktard" in their posts is a pretty good candidate for ignoring.
  • Please for the love of god will somebody go to rim.com and read the press release?

    To Quote: http://www.rim.com/news/press/2006/pr-22_02_2006-0 1.shtml [rim.com]

    All of the NTP patents have been rejected by the Patent Office in initial and second Office Actions, based in part on prior art not considered in the 2002 trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The rejections from the Patent Office were all based on multiple grounds, required the unanimous agreement of 3 senior patent e

  • "Successfully"? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by John Hasler (414242) on Thursday February 23 2006, @09:22PM (#14789811)
    > NTP, a closely held patent holding company, has successfully sued
    > RIM for infringement of its patents.

    "successfully sued" inplies that they have won something. They have not. All that they have succeeded in doing so far is filing, which anyone with the cash for the filing fees can do. Tomorrow is the hearing on their motion for a preliminary injunction. There is an excellent chance that it will be denied.
    • Curious that inaccurate remarks are getting modded up as "Insightful" thesedays.

      NTP has "WON" the suit, in that the court has ruled that RIM did in fact infringe on the patents. Now the court needs to decide what NTP gets for it. So far, the court has awarded (as a preliminary step while ligitation continues) NTP over 8% of RIM's sales, but NTP is not happy enough with that. RIM and NTP have not been able to come to an agreement on licensing, royalties, whatever, so the court now has to decide whether or no
  • This long, uncertain, high-stakes patent war shows how the patent system, even when applied by giants, makes for an unstable, unpredictable business climate. Rather than protect property rights so inventors have a stable environment into which people can invest to fund inventions, patents threaten property, reducing rights to privileges bought at a law firm, but retractable by a bigger law firm later on.

    Beyond all the other arguments - constitutional, pragmatic, new-economic, philosophical - there really is
    • They may have won the ground but what about the sky?!

      Take my love, take my land,
      Take me where I cannot stand.
      I don't care, I'm still free.
      You can't take the sky from me.

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