Supreme Court Won't Hear Blackberry Appeal

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

25 January 2006

The US Supreme Court on Monday issued an order in the patent litigation between Research In Motion Limited and NTP, Inc regarding their long-running dispute over ownership of the e-mail 'push' technology contained in the former firm's BlackBerry devices.

The Supreme Court denied RIM’s petition for certiorari that requested the Court to review issues concerning the extraterritorial reach of US patent law. While review by the Supreme Court is generally uncommon, RIM said it sought review because it believes the case raises significant national and international issues.

However, the order has no bearing on the merits of the outstanding issues in the case before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The District Court has yet to set a hearing date for further proceedings in the case based on the remand from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit decision of August 2, 2005 vacated the injunction and damages award originally entered as a result of the District Court trial in 2002 and remanded the case to the District Court for further proceedings. The Federal Circuit decision also reversed or vacated the infringement finding on 9 of the 16 litigated patent claims.

All of the NTP patent claims have now been rejected by the Patent Office in its initial rulings in reexamination proceedings, based in part on prior art not considered in the District Court trial in 2002; but it will be some time yet before the Patent Office issues final rejections.

Meanwhile, RIM has said that it fears the District Court may re-impose the original shut-down injunction. As a contingency, RIM says it has been preparing software workaround designs which it intends in the event of a renewed injunction to implement to maintain the operation of BlackBerry services in the United States.

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