Blackberry patent case brings RIM, NTP back in court

The three-year patent dispute between Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM), maker of the popular BlackBerry handheld messaging device, and NTP Inc. will make its way back to the courtroom on Monday.

Judges from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., are set to hear oral arguments and will decide whether or not to uphold an injunction that would keep RIM from selling BlackBerry handhelds, software and services in the U.S.

NTP in November 2001 filed a complaint contending that RIM’s products and services infringe on at least five NTP patents (numbers 5,625,670; 5,631,946; 5,819,172; 6,067,451 and 6,317,592) granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) covering the use of radio-frequency wireless communications in e-mail systems.

In August 2003, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled in Arlington, Virginia-based NTP’s favor and ordered RIM to pay damages of US$53.7 million. The court had placed an injunction on BlackBerry models 850, 857, 950, 957, 5810, 6510, 6210 and 6750, though RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, was subsequently granted a stay on the injunction pending this week’s appeal.

NTP attorney James Wallace, a partner with Wiley Rein & Fielding LLP in Washington, D.C., and RIM attorney, Henry Bunsow, managing partner for Northern California for Howrey Simon Arnold & White LLP in San Francisco, could not be reached for comment.

Coupled with the ongoing lawsuit between RIM and NTP, the director of the U.S. Patent Office in January 2003 ordered a reexamination of the five NTP patents, based on related patents and publications not considered when the patents were originally issued to NTP, a common antipatent argument known as “prior art.” A ruling by the USPTO is still pending.

RIM reported in April that as of Feb. 28, the end of its fiscal year 2004, it had 1.1 million BlackBerry subscribers, with an increase of 204,000 for its fourth quarter.