Blackberry maker Research In Motion (RIM) appears to be in a jam over a recent U.S. Court of Appeals decision against them in a patent infringement dispute. RIM tried to get the appellate court to change the ruling against RIM and they refused. The only alternative left may be a trip to visit new Chief Justice John Roberts and the rest of the Supreme Court (SCOTUS).
RIM’s current situation stems from a ruling back in 2002 in which the court held RIM infringed on 11 patents in its wireless email device. The patents were held by patent holding company NTP.
The juicy party of this Blackberry story is next. The U.S. District Judge James Spencer, based in Virginia, gets to determine the future of an injunction filed by NTP to prohibit Blackberry from selling or importing any hardware or software infringing on the one of those 11 patents. That covers more than half the U.S. market.
ZDNet quoted an intellectual property attorney:
“This decision…does not necessarily imply that an immediate injunction will follow,” said Robert Andris, an intellectual-property attorney and partner with Ropers Majeski Kohn & Bentley in Redwood City, Calif., who is not involved with the case. “It is more likely that the court will resolve the settlement issue before an injunction that would wipe out more than 70 percent of RIM’s market would be issued.”
The U.S. District Court will hear the case again on October 14th and will consider the injunction then. The U.S. Trademark and Patent Office also has not issued their final word on the matter so this matter is nowhere near over.
If this situation does go poorly for RIM, it will totally redefine the handheld market once again as Blackberries have asserted dominance over a tight market.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
