RIM Has a Yet Another Setback in NTP Lawsuit

The long, drawn-out, convoluted lawsuit between Research in Motion (RIM) and NTP continues to grind slowly on.

NTP started this suit in 2001, charging that the RIM's BlackBerry line of wireless handhelds use technology that infringes on several patents held by NTP.

Yesterday, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts refused a request from RIM that would have kept the case from being sent back to a district court while the Supreme Court decides whether it should hear RIM's appeal.

The company reportedly hopes to argue before the Supreme Court that these U.S. patents don't apply to the BlackBerry service, because all the server software that supposedly violates the patents is in Canada.

Goodbye BlackBerry?

Several years earlier in this case, NTP won an injunction from a district court that would bar RIM from offering the BlackBerry email service to all non-governmental users in the United States. However, the judge also ruled at that time that this not go into effect until after RIM had had a chance to appeal the decision.

Aside from the slim chance that the Supreme Court will hear the case, it has pretty much been through the appeals process. That's why a lawyer for NTP says that his company is now ready to try to get the district court to enforce the injunction.

Some are doubtful that this will ever come to pass, though. Many of the patents that this case is based on have been invalidated by the U.S. Patent Office, so it's possible that NTP couldn't get a judge to enforce it.

Also, it's fairly obvious that NTP is using the threat of this injunction to force RIM to pay a hefty licensing fee for its patents.

NTP doesn't gain anything from having the BlackBerry service shut down. It doesn't have a competing product, and in fact, has no real assets besides these patents.

Earlier this year, RIM agreed to pay $450 million to settle this lawsuit but this settlement later broke down.