Posted on June 18, 2009, at 9:14 AM .
Motorola and RIM have been in legal disputes for a long time. Back in February of 2008, RIM claimed that Motorola refused to license some of its patents “on a fair and reasonable basis”, mainly in rebuttal to an initial litigation by Motorola. RIM also accused Motorola of using 9 of RIM’s patents without permission, a complaint in response to Motorola claiming RIM is using 7 of theirs.
A magistrate judge recently ruled that Motorola patent-infringement claims against RIM will be put on hold while the U. S. government reviews the patents.
At RIM’s request, the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office is taking a second look at 10 Motorola patents. Judge William Sanderson said in Dallas on June 15 that the civil suit was “still in its infancy” and it would help to have an additional review by the patent office before it goes further with those claims.
[Via]
Posted on June 11, 2009, at 10:40 AM .
Karima Bawa is the vice-president, legal, and general counsel of RIM. Having joined RIM in 2000, she currently oversees a team of almost 50 lawyers and numerous other support staff. In addition to being involved in almost all litigation matters, she also ensures that RIM software and products have appropriate intellectual property protections and are effectively commercialized through marketplace agreements.
“RIM added over 125 new distribution partners during the past year, which is approximately one new partner every other business day,” she said. “Each of those relationships must be supported with commercial terms and conditions that satisfy RIM’s corporate goals, and my team plays an integral role in achieving win-win agreements with those partners.”
Ms. Bawa’s job is only getting more complex as RIM settles in new markets, acquires new companies and adds new partners. To accommodate, Karima has had to evolve the company’s legal structure.
“One of RIM’s key underlying objectives for many years, and last year was no different, has been to continue to prepare the organization for larger and larger scale,” she said, “so that RIM is able to capitalize on growing market opportunities.
“Such growth is naturally accompanied by compounded complexities that require significant diligence and require my team to be thoughtful business managers as well as legal advisers.”
Continue reading about RIM legal and its operations
Posted on April 28, 2008, at 7:42 AM .
Canadian High Commissioner David M. Malone sent a letter to A. Raja, India’s Communication and IT Minister, questioning the way India is handling the controversy over BlackBerry security concerns. Malone said that the Department of Telcom had “inspired little confidence that those involved on the Indian side are actually empowered to settle the matter…” and requested a conference with “the relevant authorities.” He also criticized the constant media leaks (whoops) and India’s apparent willingness to negotiate through the media. All in all, it is a very polite but very scathing letter, and we can only hope that it will help to finally put the whole matter to rest. It was dated April 17th, but if Raja sent a response, it hasn’t turned up yet.
Posted on April 18, 2008, at 7:02 AM .
A new business concept pertaining to legal is issues is starting to pop up. It’s called information governance, and it’s a way to collect and organize data relevant to any legal proceedings your company is involved in. Of course, this is nothing new at all, and businesses have been doing it for years. The problem is that most data is “human-friendly, computer-hostile.” Emails and voice mails, data which computers don’t really understand, pile up and up and trying to sift through them to find relevant data — which is very important and even legally required in the case of litigation — can be incredibly difficult. Autonomy Information Governance essentially allows computers to read that data from employees’ files and collate it. The software can be expanded to include BlackBerrys in its search, which is likely to become increasingly important as they and other smartphones do more and more.
Posted on February 6, 2008, at 1:56 PM .
Another bit from the LegalTech show is a survey from BoxTone indicating that a “significant majority (65 percent) said the [BlackBerry] platform has transitioned from an individual productivity tool to a mission-critical service”, resulting in the implementation of IT administration and monitoring tools like BoxTone. Maybe it’s just because I’m in Ottawa, but the number one demorgraphic for BlackBerry always felt like government employees, but clearly the legal field has its own entrenched usership as well.
Posted on February 5, 2008, at 8:36 AM .
WinScribe, producers of dictation software, has announced that they’ll be unveiling the BlackBerry component of the WinScribe Mobility Suite today. For those in the neighbourhood, the BlackBerry software will be demonstrated at the ALM Legal Tech New York show, held in the Hilton New York Hotel February 5-7th. WinScribe will demo it at their booth (#2109/2111) every day of the conference, and at the BlackBerry booth (#2008/2010) from 10 AM to 5 PM on February 6th. WinScribe features the ability to both provide audio to a transcription team, complete with document attachments to ensure accuracy, as well as local recording to be pushed out at a later date if reception is poor.
