Technology Industry Divided By BlackBerry Patent Dispute

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

07 September 2005

According to reports in the technology media, friend-of-the-court (or amicus) briefs filed last week by Microsoft and Intel in the ongoing patent dispute between Research In Motion and NTP have revealed a deep industry divide over the matter.

NTP has successfully argued in several US courts that the function in Canada-based RIM's BlackBerry devices which automatically receives and displays new e-mail messages without any prompting from the end user represents an infringement of its intellectual property, a view which has been challenged by RIM.

According to a CNET News report, in its appeals court filing, Microsoft argued that the case creates "an incentive for American companies to locate certain aspects of their systems outside the United States, primarily to avoid infringement liability".

However, Intel has reportedly come out in support of Research In Motion, claiming that NTP is at fault for failing to include in its patent infringement claim language which covered international borders.

"Instead they chose to claim systems with many components and ran the risk that such systems would not be practiced entirely within this country," it observed.

Although both firms have stated that they have no vested interest in the outcome of the dispute, Gartner analyst Todd Kort suggested to CNET that this was somewhat misleading.

"Intel has an interest in resolving RIM's case quickly because all of the next generation of BlackBerry devices will be based on Intel chips," he explained, going on to add that:

"Microsoft sees a benefit to dragging out the legal fight between RIM and NTP because it could limit the amount of BlackBerry devices sold."

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