The battle between RIM and Visto has been going on for some time now. Last we heard, Visto had paid RIM for certain patent infringements but there were 21 patent claims outstanding for the US Patent Office to rule on. The patents concern email synchronization between devices and local servers.
It seems that yesterday, the two companies have come to a definitive agreement to settle all outstanding worldwide patent litigation between the companies.
The agreement includes a perpetual and fully-paid license on all Visto patents for RIM, a transfer of certain Visto intellectual property, a one-time payment by RIM of US $ 267.5 million to Visto and the parties executing full and final releases in respect of all outstanding worldwide litigation.
The settlement is expected to be completed during the week of July 20, 2009 and is subject to certain closing conditions.
Accounting for these dollars in the 2nd quarter of 2010, will involve including the payments as an unusual item to be expensed, with the remained classified as an intangible asset. This is a considerable sum of money and it will be interesting to see what effect the resolution will have on RIM’s shares.
