BlackBerry lawsuit FAQ: What you need to know
Background on the case and how it affects users
February 07, 2006 (Computerworld) -- The BlackBerry patent infringement case has led to a whirl of recent legal filings over the future of the popular wireless handheld device. This list of answers to frequently asked questions provides background on the case and its potential impact on users.
Why are they talking about shutting down the BlackBerry wireless network? Because about two years ago BlackBerry vendor Research In Motion Ltd. in Waterloo, Ontario, lost a patent infringement lawsuit in U.S. courts brought by a company called NTP Inc. The court awarded NTP damages amounting to $53.7 million and issued an injunction that would shut down the operation of the BlackBerry network in the U.S. RIM got a stay of execution for the injunction, but NTP is expected to seek to have it reimposed later this month.
What is NTP Inc.? NTP is a holding company created in 1992 to manage certain patents belonging to Thomas Campana, an electrical engineer. The firm operates out of a lawyer's office in McLean, Va. It has licensed patents to other companies and has two dozen shareholders, mostly lawyers in the Washington area. In 2002, Campana sued RIM for infringing five of his patents and prevailed in the original trial and on appeal. He died in June 2004, but NTP has carried on the suit.
What does NTP have against RIM? They want royalties for the patents. The injunction is a weapon given by the court to NTP so NTP can ensure payment.
"We have said that we are more than willing to license RIM on a reasonable royalty-paid-up basis," said James Wallace Jr., a lawyer with Wiley Rein & Fielding LLP in Washington and lead trial counsel for NTP. "RIM has the keys to its own jail."
RIM did not comment for this article, but has stated repeatedly in documents that it considers an injunction "inappropriate" on public interest and legal grounds.
Are BlackBerry users in trouble? They're not involved in the lawsuit. But if the injunction does go into effect, they may lose service inside the U.S. There would probably be exceptions for users in public safety organizations, plus a 30-day grace period.
But while RIM has exhibited a penchant for brinksmanship, it is considered unlikely that RIM will submit to an injunction rather than settle. As noted by Gartner Inc. analyst Martin Reynolds, RIM has nearly 4 million users paying $25 a month -- and no responsible company walks away from $100 million per month in revenue.
What are those infringed patents? Principally, we're talking about good ol' 5,436,960, titled "Electronic mail system with RF communications to mobile processors and method of operation thereof," which was filed May 20, 1991. And then there are four others: 5,625,670, 5,819,172, 6,067,451, and 6,317,592, each with a similar title; they are considered continuations of the first.
What do the patents cover? To quote the trial findings, they describe a system where "a message originating in an electronic mail system may be transmitted not only by wireline but also via RF, in which case it is received by the user and stored on his or her mobile RF receiver.
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