The United States Patent and Trademark Office has stated that it will try to complete a review with “special dispatch” of patents that BlackBerry maker Research in Motion has been found guilty of infringement and that could force a shutdown of BlackBerry service in the U.S. if a settlement agreement isn’t reached before an injucntion goes into effect.
The reason for the urgency is because the USPTO claims that the patent holder, Virginia based patent holding firm NTP, is improperly attempting to slow down anticipated rejections of the patents RIM was found guilty of infringing upon.
“NTP has been improperly attempting to slow down the anticipated rejections from the patent office, even going so far as to recently attempt to bog down the patent office with a highly unusual request to process filings for over 30,000 new patent claims,” Research In Motion spokesman Mark Guibert said in an e-mail.
In response to concerns from the U.S. District Court overseeing the patent infringement case and based on “outstanding public interest” that the proceedings are acted upon with special dispatch, the USPTO has assigned a dedicated examining team to handle the proceedings.