Possible Effects Of Legal Dispute Between RIM And NTP On Existing Customers

We are currently in talks with T-Mobile to get Blackberries and the Blackberry Server deployed into our organization.

One possible sticking point might be the ongoing legal dispute between RIM and NTP over patent infringements.

Does anyone think that the worst case scenario of RIM no longer being able to sell Blackberries in the US will have an effect on existing customers?

Also, I really have to say that I find 1) the fact that someone can patent an idea as general as a device that can receive emails wirelessly ludicrous and 2) these sorts of patent cases ridiculous. Whoever thought it was a good idea to allow the patenting of general business practices and ideas (one click internet shopping is another egregious example) had no business being in control of the patent process in the first place.

These sorts of patents do NOTHING to foster innovation, in fact they put a chill over the whole process, and create an environment of incredible uncertainty in the US business environment. Uncertainty is anathema to business growth in my humble opinion.

Comments

[Tom]

I have BB's deployed to over 200 lawyers in 6 cities and even a couple in Europe. I see no impact from the case on end users, it is just a strangle move by NTP to gain revenue. As it stands, RIM is not selling BB's in the US. The wireless carriers are, ie: TMobile, ATT, etc.
There are other things you should be worrying about. They don't call these things 'crackberries' for nothing, so you better have good uptime for you mail servers, and expect a lot of calls if outages occur.

[Dann Sheridan]

Don't worry about this. It's going to be tied up in the courts for a very long time. RIM said on Tuesday that the injunction had been vacated pending the appeal, which will allow them to continue to sell and support BlackBerries in the States.

http://news.com.com/Appeals+court+RIM+violated+patents/2100-1047_3-5490645.html

http://www.rim.net/news/press/2004/pr-14_12_2004-06.shtml

Our beautiful legal and patent system singing in harmony.

[JC]

I think your real issue here is going to end up being privacy and confidentiality.
That will become the most important point, should someone else end up infected and either by losing or intercepting information not intended for public view.
I know that Dr.'s can still be held responsible if someone steals their computers and uses the information on them - because they are responsible to secure them and prevent the release of any information in their care.
Talk to the pro's and get the advice of the licensing organization - it might save you lots of headaches later.

[Dovid]

Happened upon this in a search for something else. Gotta say, though... Oh, I don't know about your knee-jerk reaction to the patents. Have you read them? Have you even read their titles?

One-click shipping was an error by the patent office, because a patent should be something non-obvious. But real-time transmission of controlled, detailed messages, i.e., e-mail, sounds like something patentable, it involves many complex combinations of technologies, and data transform algorithms.

Check out this link http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/og/2003/week31/patrequ.htm

You can then at least say you read the titles.