Two Weeks to Judgment Day

Posted
by
Kyle McInnes
on February 10, 2006, at 9:55 AM
in Editorials
.
Comments: 4 responses
4 Comments

Today marks the two weeks until Judge Spencer gives his decision on a possible Blackberry injunction. So it wasn’t a surprise that RIM released the actual workaround details today. Which doesn’t give NTP that much time to review if the new workaround infringes on their patents, possibly scaring them to settle at a lower price than the reported $1 billion mark everyone is throwing around. We actually wouldn’t be surprised if NTP settled at a lower price than the old $450 million mark. Don’t call us crazy yet, let us explain our reasoning. If NTP and RIM can’t settle and Judge Spencer imposes an injunction on Blackberry service, RIM would therefor release their workaround. In this case, NTP would obviously get nothing so they would have to file a new patent infringement case against the workaround because that’s how a patent troll company operates. However, when they do this, the courts would now have to consider the recent USPTO rulings which voided NTP patents – you can’t sue with invalid patents. So before they can file a new lawsuit against RIM, they would have to go to back to the USPTO and ask them to re-examined their patents which does not guarantee that the USPTO will reinstate their patents. This process could also take a year or more and by then the push email landscape would probably look much different.

So long story short, NTP backs are now on the wall which contradicts most people’s feelings thinking that RIM are the ones that are worried because they have the most to lose. Infact NTP has a huge amount of money to lose aswell, $450 million in fact.

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  • One Little Twit

    Absolutely agreed. 450 mil is not a small amount even for any company. Sometimes i think it’s better to settle for content and not greed.

  • One Little Twit

    Absolutely agreed. 450 mil is not a small amount even for any company. Sometimes i think it’s better to settle for content and not greed.

  • Voice of reason

    NTP is guaranteed the money RIM is setting aside from the jury award, even if the patent it later declared invalid. That alone stands probably close to $300 million. So why would NTP settle for less then the $450million? They have nothing to lose by taking this as far as possible in the courts and through the patent office. This is another reason why getting an injunction doesn’t hurt them as much as some people try to make on. RIM on the other hand has everything to lose in this game of chicken they’ve decided to play.

  • Voice of reason

    NTP is guaranteed the money RIM is setting aside from the jury award, even if the patent it later declared invalid. That alone stands probably close to $300 million. So why would NTP settle for less then the $450million? They have nothing to lose by taking this as far as possible in the courts and through the patent office. This is another reason why getting an injunction doesn’t hurt them as much as some people try to make on. RIM on the other hand has everything to lose in this game of chicken they’ve decided to play.