RIM wins ruling on final NTP patent claim

RIM wins ruling on final NTP patent claim

"Research in Motion Ltd. has received a copy of a final office action issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in the ex parte re-examination of NTP, Inc. patent No. 5,436,960. This final office action maintains the outright and complete rejection of all claims in the patent.

All of the three patents remaining in dispute in the NTP v. RIM litigation have now been rejected based in part on prior art not considered in the 2002 trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Although NTP may appeal, the rejections reflect the final opinion of the patent office's central re-examination unit that the the patents at issue in this case are invalid.

The final rejections were all based on multiple grounds, required unanimous agreement from a panel of three senior patent examiners and are expected to withstand all future appeals by NTP."

http://www.stockwatch.com/swnet/new...x?bid=B-528034-C:RIM&symbol=RIM&news_region=C

Yeah, NTP is the squatter, reminds me of that "submarine" patent guy......

This is great news--now you know that if you get hassled by jerks with bogus patents, you too have a chance of surviving if you have enough millions to spend on legal fees getting rid of the patents that should never have been issued in the first place. What a relief.

just got my Blackberry a few weeks ago.. a 7105t. I've been keeping up on this topic for a bit and wasn't too worried about things getting shut down. There were back up plans if things were 'shut down' and it's unlikely they would just pull the plug on so many professionals/government workers that rely on them. For as long as this has been dragging on, I can see it going back and forth a bit longer with appeals and such..

here's a pic of my avatar on blackberryforums dot com - kinda funny

and a pic of ma phone

twentysixtwo said:

Yeah, NTP is the squatter, reminds me of that "submarine" patent guy......

Click to expand...

I agree! The law should be the same with patents as with cyber squatting. You shouldn't be able to squat on a questionable patent for 10+ years and do absolutely nothing with it and then expect to extort someone for money.

Of course I disagree with the whole concept of IP anyway. Patents are for physical objects. You shouldn't be able to patent some nebulous idea. All this "intellectual property" BS is getting way out of hand....

I don't get it. That stockwatch article seems to be very different from this CNN Money article. Did the patent office ruling come out after the judge's ruling?

As I heard it, the judge said that despite the patent examiner's ruling, he was bound by the jury's decision.

The current action is for an injunction to force backberry to shut down based on the civil lawsuit.

I'm guessing that blackberry has to now apeal the earlier suit on the grounds of new evidence. ???


Daniel

RIM's CEO made a current statement, there may be NO settlement with NTP not that all patents in question are declared invalid and non apealable.