NTP's ongoing Patent Infringement case against RIM

This story starts with an electrical engineer called Thomas Campana. Back in 1992 he registered a number of patents around the research he’d undertaken into providing electronic mail over radio frequency particularly involving the use of an intermediary to store and forward the messages.

He claimed in a court case in 2002 that RIM had infringed these patents and won his case and the following appeal. Although he died in 2004 his case was continued by NTP, a holding company created to manage his patent rights.

The court awarded NTP $53.7m in damages and an injunction was put in place to close down the Blackberry network in the US. RIM managed to get a stay of execution, however, NTP are expected to ask to get it reinstated later this month.

Both organisations had announced a $450m settlement last year, but this deal fell apart.

To add extra complication to the case, the US Patent and Trademarks Office recently rejected a number of the NTP patents. This was due to ‘prior art’, in essence another organisation had produced something similar in 1989. However, NTP believe that their patents will be upheld on appeal.

With all of these legal shenanigans, the poor Blackberry user can be forgiven for not knowing which way to turn. Gartner have long been recognised as an impartial technology consultancy and they see the probable outcomes as;

• Resolution of this matter will be delayed for 12 months to 18 months (35% probability).
• RIM and NTP will settle (35% probability).
• RIM will enact work-around plans it claims does not run afoul of NTP (20% probability).
• The federal court will issue an injunction against RIM that shuts down service (10% probability).

Gartner’s advise risk adverse organisations to cap their Blackberry deployments and assess alternate suppliers as detailed in their Magic Quadrant for 2H05.

For the full Gartner report click here. The Gartner site is also a good resource for information on how this case plays out.