%A George H. Pike
%J Information Today
%T BlackBerry: Lawsuit and Patent Reform
%X It appears that your BlackBerry is safe. After more than four years of litigation and a threatened shutdown, a settlement was reached between Research in Motion (RIM)?the manufacturer of the BlackBerry?and NTP the holder of several patents that RIM had allegedly infringed. There were a number of questions underlying this lawsuit. However, the core question that emerged in the final stages of the suit, when a shutdown was considered imminent, was whether the patents that NTP held were valid. Even though a federal court established in 2002 that RIM had infringed the patents, a review of the patents by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2005 and 2006 had declared at least some of the patents to be invalid. While RIM and NTP were in court dealing with a possible shutdown, and conducting behind-the-scenes settlement negotiations, a possibility existed that the entire exercise might be irrelevant.
%N 5
%K post-patent, review, process, patent, infringement, patent, law, reform, patent, claims, technology, patents, invalidation, BlackBerry, RIM, Research, in, Motion, NTP
%P 1 - ?
%V 25
%D 2006
%I Learned Information, Inc., Medford, NJ
%L pittir2700