Last Friday, not only did Federal District Court Judge James R. Spencer decide not to impose an injunction on Research in Motion, but the United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected the final 3 of 5 patents NTP successfully litigated. Much of the talk since the hearing has been about settlement talks or lack there of less a press release on the RIM website and and comments made by RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie in an interview right outside the courthouse after the hearing.

My question is what do these rejected patents really mean? I am hoping that someone versed in patent law can chime in because I would think if the patents that RIM was guilty of infringing upon don’t actually exist any longer in the eyes of the USPTO, NTP wouldn’t have a leg to stand. This, however, must not be the case because all we have heard about for the passed two days are some type of settlement between NTP and RIM.