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Originally Posted by Not_A_Stain
Can someone "refresh" my memory about the RIM lawsuit
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OK this is from memory so, sorry if some of my facts are wrong. RIM (Research in Motion) is the maker of the beloved blackberry and was sued by NTP for patent infringement. NTP is a small software company that holds patents on the software used by RIM to deliver content to Blackberry devices.
Right from the beginning many experts were predicting that RIM would prevail... but as time went along the a series of court decisions sent strong messages that it was leaning towards NTP. In fact, it came very close to issuing an injunction on Blackbery devices and shutting down the entire network. And remember this was before the iphone came along. The Blackberry was the defacto standard for email on portable devices.
Eventually they settled out of court with RIM paying something like $600 million.
It was a nightmare... that no one every imagined would go that far.
Of course all patents lawsuits are different but I'd be careful not to dismiss this so fast.