• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Archives

RIMarkable

The Unofficial BlackBerry Weblog

  • Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Rumor Mill
You are here: Home / BlackBerry / Question about an NTP / RIM settlement

Question about an NTP / RIM settlement

November 11, 2005 by Robb Dunewood 2 Comments

I have a question about if RIM and NTP were to settle over the patent infringement case where the BlackBerry maker was found guilty on five counts of patent infringement.

It looks very likely that RIM will settle with NTP because U.S. District Court Judge James Spencer has become increasingly impatient with both RIM and NTP and doesn’t plan on waiting on the U.S. Patents Office to chime in with it’s final ruling on the validity of the patents in the first place. Remember, the U.S. Patents office rejected all eight of NTP’s patents so now there is a somewhat lengthy appeals process that both NTP and RIM have to go through. If judge Spencer doesn’t wait on those proceedings to complete and rules on the evidence before him, he may tell RIM to settle with NTP or face and injunction.

My question is if RIM settles with NTP and pays them anywhere from $450 million to $1 billion dollars to make this problem go away, what happens if a few months down the road the U.S. Patents Office upholds its finding that NTP’s patents are invalid? If I were NTP, I would definitely try to make sure that any agreement reached would not be contingent on any rulings from the Patents Office. I don’t know if that is legal but I definitely go that route if it were. It seems to me that RIM may have to shell out a boat load of money for a settlement over patents that don’t actually exist. (Correction, we did say $450 million to $1 billion… This is more like a super oil tanker load of money)

If this turns out to be the case, it would really suck for RIM investors.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: BlackBerry

Reader Interactions

Trackbacks

  1. » U.S. Department of Justice says “Whoa!… Wait a minute” on possible BlackBerry injunction: RIMarkable says:
    November 11, 2005 at 3:33 pm

    […] kable The Official, Unofficial BlackBerry Weblog « Question about an NTP / RIM settlement U.S. Department of Justice says “Whoa!… […]

    Reply
  2. » Supreme Court refuses to hear Research in Motion’s appeal » RIMarkable says:
    January 24, 2006 at 12:57 am

    […] hat they are not shutdown is settle with NTP. Judge Spencer, although quoted as saying he does not have to wait on the final ruling for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office over the validity of th […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Like What you See?

If you're serious about your business, the Aspire theme is the way to go.

Recent Posts

  • The Priv…..You Better Market It!!
  • BB10… A Slow Death?
  • The Day BlackBerry Forced Me To Leave BlackBerry
  • BlackBerry Hank Says Goodbye
  • Get A 10% Discount Code On A New BlackBerry Silver Passport

Copyright © 2021 · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in