RIM Settles Long-Standing Blackberry Claim 295
David Jao writes "Research in Motion has agreed to pay 612.5 million dollars for a 'full and final settlement of all claims' resulting from the NTP patent lawsuit against the makers of BlackBerry. According to the article, the settlement is 'on the low end of expectations', perhaps because the patents in question had earlier been preliminarily ruled invalid by the US Patents & Trademarks Office." Many article submitters characterize this move as 'giving in' to NTP's tactics. What do you think?
Time to organize because.. (Score:2, Interesting)
All this proves is we need to fix the USPTO (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite averting a BlackBerry shutdown, however, this case is just more proof that the US Patent Office is in crisis. While some of NTP's patents may prove to be valid, it is clear that many of them should never have been granted in the first place.
The US Patent Office's failure to ensure quality threatens the patent system that is so critical to innovative small tech firms. If the quality of patents is not improved, the industry may lose faith in the entire system.
Some may not like software patents, but the reality is that companies have them. Open Source Champion IBM is the single largest patenter in the WORLD. they still make billions (with a b) off of patent licensing - including software/method patent licensing. Small companies like 'slingbox' have patents to ensure that they get VC funding and to prevent Sony from just creating the exact same product and steamrolling them.
I, along with Diane Peters from OSDL, Bruce Perens, lawyers from IBM and others got together at the USPTO last month to talk about ways to improve patent quality. No solutions yet, but some good discussion.
The quality issue MUST be solved, and NOW; so before you launch into a general "patents suck" rage, take a reality check and think about ways to get more prior art into the patent system and improve the quality.
It will be several years before patent reform legislation becomes law, so we are going to to have to find technology solutions that we can implement now, and hope that legislation fixes the things we can't.
Morgan Reed
Magic money for nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
The one good thing to come of this is it has raised the problem in the public eye. Congressmen thought they would lose their Blackberries. Let's hope some real reform is on the way.
Pay them and then kick them in the groin... (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember the GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm confused... (Score:2, Interesting)
It seems really dumb. Why couldn't the court just say "based on new information... yadda yadda yadda" like on L&O and throw the case out? Can someone explain that?
Boggles the mind...
Don't give up too soon. (Score:3, Interesting)
Keep in mind, the House and Senate (not to mention damn near every federal agency imaginable) use Blackberry, so they're already on their side and will probably be more than happy to make life $612M easier for RIM over time.
Re:Disappointed (Score:5, Interesting)
This might not have been a good case for prompting patent reform. I haven't read the patents myself, but from the discussion on the TWiT podcast, they were saying that the patents actually looked pretty legitimate, and were only likely to be overturned because of the immense pressure the government was putting on to keep their Blackberries going.
In other words, it's not clear that NTP is that bad guy here, and the RIM is the good guy.
What were the real terms? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm confused... (Score:1, Interesting)
It doesn't matter. How many live for Blackberry to keep their lives in order? There's a reason it's called a Crackberry....but:
This isn't The Wrath of Khan" where "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one".
If Blackberrys' email functionality had been shut off, the users would be screaming bloody murder but one of a couple of things would happen: they'd do without, do without - temporarily, hoping it'll be restored soon, find some other means, or have RIM provide them with specific phone numbers and let the Blackberry customers create a DOS attack on the phone system, attempting to force them to play ball. That might piss someone off and make them raise the stakes.
You know, a lot of this could have been avoided had engineers kept good records, turned copies over periodically, and Legal performed the proper patent checks. There should be a landshark BBQ when this settles down. The problem is landsharks are bottom feeders and probably don't taste very good. They could still be cooked on a spit...for sport [for screwing the company via their incompetence, although they pass the actual work off to someone else to do the actual searches].
Re:I'm confused... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:612.5 million?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone else who has followed this case from the beginning
I think their early IP talk actually popped them up on NTP's radar initially, they were making a lot of noise about it.
They got exactly what they deserved, but the system could still use a fixing, badly.
In this case, I believe the little guy is dead. (Score:3, Interesting)
What bothers me in this entire process is that NTP was composed entirely of the inventor and a lawyer. So for much of this case, it's been just a lawyer.
The most foolish thing though is that I believe RIM could have settled this case for far smaller sum early on, but now its 600M and probably something similar again in lawyers fees and business damage.
Re:RIM is a not a hero, fellas (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you are passing on unsubstantiated hearsay. From what I can tell, the judge claimed that RIMM faked the prior art, which flies in the face of the fact that the patent office later invalidated the patents based on the prior art.