A claim filed by a Luxembourg company against RIM partner T-Mobile in German court seeks to block BlackBerry sales.
Research in Motion wants a UK court to invalidate the British version of Inpro Licensing’s patent, in order to stall the proceedings in Germany, according to an IHT report.
“The threat of an injunction causes Research in Motion’s customers great concern,” David Kitchen, a lawyer for Research in Motion, told the court. “Our customers are likely to consider how to minimize their legal risks by adopting alternative technologies.”
RIM has had a lot of legal issues crop up recently. In addition to the challenge to T-Mobile, which expects to sell 500,000 BlackBerries and related devices this year, RIM saw its settlement with US patent holder NTP fall through as NTP began to question parts of the $450 million USD agreement.
RIM has had to go back to court in the US to try and compel NTP to abide by the agreement. Co-chairman Jim Balsillie has stated that RIM wants to pay NTP the $450 million and is not trying to get around any of the terms of the settlement.
In Europe, Inpro claims that it owns the patent for processing data between wireless devices. RIM stock has lost 9.8 percent of its value in 2005.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
