Libercontrarian

Crushed between the wheels of capitalism and big government.

Counting Coup In The RIM-NTP Case

Here come Da Judge!

Research in Motion Ltd was given a temporary reprieve on an injunction being handed down against its US wireless email service on Friday, but the judge left little room for doubt that he expects the company to quickly settle its patent infringement suit with NTP Inc.

Judge James Spencer of the Virginia court where the long-running case is being heard said that he was "absolutely surprised" that the companies had not managed to reach an out-of-court settlement, and that he would rule on an injunction and damages "as soon as reasonably possible".

"The case should have been settled. But it hasn't. So I have to deal with that reality," he said, according to a transcript of his closing remarks at a Friday (this was the 24th) hearing.

It is this event which made the deal possible – the judge used a common-sense-delaying-tactic to get two parties who had valid claims (I say that NTP’s claim was marginally more valid, thus he would have been forced to rule in favor of NTP) to FUCKING SETTLE THE DAMMNED THING before he had to rule in favor of NTP and shut down the pervasive RIM networks that are being used by upwards of 4 million subscribers, many of them employed by the Federal .gov.

Since Judge Spencer knew the potential harm to RIM, the subscribers, and the .Gov, he wisely allowed the pressure of the Patent Office finding that was unfavorable to NTP on the 21st and the potentiality that he would find for NTP in his ruling as being sufficient pressure on both parties to agree on a fair settlement.

One of my coworkers thinks NTP’s case was merely a nuisance lawsuit; NTP’s founder is no longer amongst the living, and his greedy relatives are scrambling for the giant pot of savings (said to be $1.8 billion) that RIM has stockpiled as a result of their meteoric growth. I think that she’s onto something, although NTP appears to have enough of a valid claim that RIM’s legal team thought this a “best practice” strategy for RIM’s continued prosperity. They later admitted that the “workaround solution” that they were loudly declaring to their stockholders and customers would have been prohibitively expensive.

What does all this mean to your Libercontrarian? It means that Koko The Sales Gorilla will be holding a Crackberry 7520 in his furry paw come Thursday of next week. The future of RIM is looking great!

posted by: underwhelmed at March 03, 2006 22:15 | link | comments |

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