Comments on: BlackBerry saved

BlackBerry users can take deep breath. RIM, NTP reach $612.5 million settlement to skirt service injunction.

[HughJJorgan]

A big one-finger salute to NTP...

For their excessive, SCO-like greed in pursuing this case, and for the fact that they do nothing but apply for patents. Shame on them.

[dcongrav]

Wholehearted agreement

The new type of piracy. Do nothing except collect patents then milk the proceeds. And the really, really big winners...The Lawyers. Worse that WMD or terrorists

[regulator1956]

Good going NTP

RIM stole an inventor's work. He died before he could force RIM to pay up. He and his wife were forced to partner up with NTP so there was money to pursue RIM.

If RIM wasn't wrong, the parties would have settled for $0 or maybe paid a bit to NTP just to go away.

RIM is now stating - We are paying NTP over $600 million because we stole from them and no matter how hard our laweyers tried, and how much political influence we tried to exert, NTP kept winning in court.

Good for the inventor. May he Rest-In-Peace. Thank you NTP for putting up huge amounts of money and taking the risk.

[Sonicsands]

RIM did not steal anything

For RIM to have stolen something, you would have to show that they learned of this so-called patented invention by Thomas Campana and then proceeded to commercialize it.

But if you read all of NTP's patents and also learn the history of Campana's work, you will see that this is a typical example of patent lawyers generalizing a niche invention to vaguely cover technologies neither the inventor nor the patent lawyers envisioned. Make the wording general enough, and suddenly you can wag your finger to accuse a toaster maker of infringing the patent of a heater.

I applaud RIM for standing by their principles for so long and am saddened that they caved in. I am curious, if NTP's patents do not stand up after final review by USPTO, will NTP return RIM's payment?

[mennjijo]

WHAT? RIM pays for invalid patents?

Initial USPO review has invalidated ALL applicable NTP patents related to RIM's case. A final USPO review has now invalidated one of those NTP patents and scuttlebutt indicates the same fate will ensue for the rest. Something really stinks here. A prior trial jury finds in favor of NTP based on patents that are later declared invalid and our legal system allows NTP to keep any monies RIM pays NTP? What am I missing here? I see red flags going up with both the USPO and the US legal system.

[rdean]

RIM didn't steal

anything. The flawed patent and legal systems led to this resolution. It basically amounted to blackmail. None of the courts would wait for the PTO to complete its re-examination.

That left RIM with two unsavory choices: 1) wait on the PTO re-exam to invalidate NTP's patents and risk the injunction (which would be a death knell for their business, no matter what their planned software workaround was; or 2) pay NTP so the matter goes away, but at least they got to kick NTP in the corporate groin by having initiated the PTO review that will invalidate all the "IP" that came into play in this case.

[epiccollision]

First your an idiot..

you don't know anything about the case so go dunk your head and read before speaking about things you obviouly know nothing about...second this is really sad...wait i'm gonna sue...

[stskhalsa]

Legal extortion

Anyone who believes the "justice" system of the US isn't
irretrievably broken hasn't been paying attention, or, at least,
has never had personal experience with it.

The RIM case is an obvious example. As a software developer, I
was involved in creating landmark IP contracts in the early
1980's, so one would expect I would side with NTP on this issue.
This assumption would be incorrect.

I believe that Judge Spencer stands in the position of the
"muscle" in a Mafia-style extortion scheme. He has served no
socially beneficial purpose and his idiotic pig-headed stance in
the face of full knowledge that the patents he so assiduously
defended were (excuse me) patently false, that one is forced to
assume that his decision was based not on law but criminal
conflict of interest. His stance, strong-arming RIM to pay
protection money for patents that are, and alway have been,
INVALID, is reprehensible at best, criminal at worst.

I don't use a Blackberry and have no personal dog in this fight,
but I believe that this case is a canary in the coal mine. The
system is broken and if it doesn't get fixed we're all hosed.

The "inventor" representatives applauding this travesty are
short-sighted and venal. If they can't recognize the difference
between legitimate intellectual property and hosebag
extortionate litigation fodder, they don't warrant an opinion.

[joco69]

Blackberry saved

I understand the commercial reality for RIM to go for a settlement with NTP. However it is to this Canadian difficult to understand how companies like NTP even are allowed to exist. The USA and its laws are abusive and non-respective to anything thats outside there juridictions, shame on the USA shame on NTP.

[TogetherinParis]

Criminalize patent infractions

Willful and systematic theft of intellectual property: patenting
someone else's invention, copywriting somebody else's story,
etc., should be criminalized. Jail and restitution must be equal
remedies. Stealing ideas from people wrecks their lives and
diminishes their families unjustly to degradation, poverty and
want.

[regulator1956]

RE: Criminalize patent infractions

Bubba, great idea.

If it can be proven that a company purposely used someone else's invention - knowingly - the CEO/owner should go to prison.

If there was no intent, then no criminal act occurred.

The guy that invented intermitant window wipers for cars had to sue many of the car companies. Some honest car companies looked at the other cases and settled. Other slimeball car companies just kept fighting because paying money later is better for their bonuses and stock options then paying now.

If those CEO's were facing jail time, the lawyers would have had fewer billable hours and the inventor would have had a lot less stress.

Lots of people called that inventor all kinds of bad names, but in the end, he invented it and all the car companies paid him.

[unigamer69]

"Doggy patents"

Something I've seriously thought about - and which has been around, at the very least, since the revelations on the Unisys patents on LZW (affecting things like GIF pictures) - is the idea of "doggy patents."

There are two ways these can work - one maliciously, and one more innocently:

1.) INNOCENT:
Company A creates (or obtains the rights to) Invention Z.
Company A patents Invention Z.
Company B uses, or makes too similar an implementation of, Invention Z.
Company B hadn't done their homework, and is likely liable to Company A, for their use of Invention Z.

2.) MALICIOUS:
Company A creates (or obtains the rights to) Invention Z - *with the intent to let it sit in the background for the forseeable future.* In other words, they do pretty much nothing with it.
Company B incorporates Invention Z (or something very similar) into Product X.
Product X becomes a hugely popular success - and perhaps a de facto, or even official (e.g, ANSI, ISO), standard.
Company A lowers the boom, and demands a big wad o f money from Company B.
Company B may or may not settle - if not...
Company A sues Company B.
Company A gets a huge judgement, eventual settlement, or even an injunction - crippling something that has become a standard for a large userbase.

Is it just me, or is there something just plain wrong with the second scenario?

It'd be a pain to prove it... but some of these seem like that - esp. where they involve widespread standards. NTP's patent is a good example - it seems as if no one in this country had even *heard* of them before this. It's not enough to prove culpability in the second scenario... but it's damn suspicious IMHO.

Other good examples are Unisys with LZW (GIF, and even more sadly, V.42biz. Yes, I know that modems are a thing of the past for a lot of people... but the fact that such a thing made it into a world standard is screwed up), and one company a while back which claimed rights over something used in the JPEG standard (again, never heard of them).

The latter of those is just plain BS - and I'm almost sure it fits into my second hypothetical scenario above. I mean... that was almost 20 years ago. They had plenty of time to bring that up before when they did.

[kamwmail-cnet1]

Blackberry's OverHyped.

In this day and age of Windows Mobile and multimedia email for handhelds, why use Blackberry?

Blackberry's days are numbered already. It'll go the way of Apple and it's Macs. Maybe you can play music on your Blackberry's in the future.

[ipfresh]

BlackBerry

Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) announced late today that it has agreed to pay $612.5 million to NTP Inc. to settle the long-running legal fight between the two companies.
The patent dispute had threatened to end RIM's popular BlackBerry e-mail service to millions of users in the U.S. and has been the subject of a contentious, four-year patent battle between the two companies. http://www.media-press-release.com/desk/200603/24855.htm

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