Mark Evans

What Now RIM?

Is
Research in Motion backed
into a deep legal corner after Gartner Group advised its customers
“stop or delay” Blackberry purchases until RIM's patent dispute with
NTP is resolved? (Note: If a judge imposes an injuction on RIM next
month, Blackberry sales and its mobile e-mail service in the U.S. would
have to  be stopped.) Like the NHL lock-out
where a settlement made sense for everyone, RIM and NTP need to get
this lawsuit resolved. Both sides need to realize the Blackberry
franchise could start to be damaged. If I'm RIM's battalion of lawyers, I'm asking NTP
“So, what's it going to take to make this go away? $500 million? $750
million? $1 billion” At some point, NTP should take the money and run….and then
use the victory over RIM as a starting point to squeeze multi-million dollar licenses out of
other wireless companies. The big wildcard in the RIM-NTP catfight is the software “work-around” that RIM has developed. Apparently, this work-around will let RIM provide Blackberry service without infringin NTP's patents. It makes you wonder why RIM hasn't implemented this work-around already. If it really works - and just isn't a negotiating tool for a settlement - then RIM would be able to easily resolve its patent problems without, in theory, having to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars to NTP. It's a mystery, I tell you!
For more details on Gartner's recommendation,
check out today's National Post story.

Update: The U.S. government has deemed the Blackberry to be an essential service so the court injuction - if it's imposed - would not affect politicians, bureaucrats, etc. That said, I wonder how RIM and/or its U.S. carriers can determine who works for the U.S. government so Blackberry service can be kept on. Perhaps it has to do with U.S. government e-mail domains?