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Great photo on
the front page of the print edition! I’d seen a smaller view elsewhere… Yes, I should
have finished my last sentence with, Stephen would be pleased – with the irony. But in today’s
world, is it that much different from politicians running for office in one
place who’ve lived elsewhere? Ignatieff's
candidacy heckled, jeered Ignatieff forgot
that "all politics is local" The riding into which he was
"parachuted" has protested his presence and in a largely
Ukranian-Canadian population some have found that Ignatieff's previous writings
denigrated the Ukraine. Maybe he should
stick to the "big picture." arthur -----Original Message----- Canadian and US relations
have been a little bruised of late, the unilateralism of the Bush
administration clashing with the multilaterialism of two Canadian governments.
Disputes have been about beef, prescription drugs, and softwood, now this is
added to the mix. Also, I noticed that
Michael Ignatieff has left his position at Harvard and writing for the NYT
Magazine to return to Canada as a politician.
Methinks Stephen Straker would be pleased. kwc Judge
May Halt BlackBerry Service in U.S. Richmond,
VA - A federal judge has rejected Research In
Motion Ltd.'s effort to
settle a patent case and moved a step closer to reissuing an injunction that
threatens BlackBerry e-mail service in the United States. U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer on
Wednesday turned down the wireless device maker's bid to enforce a preliminary
$450 million settlement reached earlier this year with NTP Inc., a small firm that has convinced a
jury that BlackBerry infringes on its patents for wireless communication. In
another blow to RIM, Spencer also turned down the Canadian company's request to
delay the case pending final word from the U.S. patent office, which has
preliminarily rejected the patents at the heart of the lawsuit. With those issues out of the way, Spencer
next plans to address damages and, once again, an injunction would force RIM to
halt BlackBerry service in the United States. After a jury decided against RIM
in 2002, Spencer held off on the injunction pending appeals. Analysts
and industry observers say RIM, based in Waterloo,
Ontario, will likely be forced to settle the lawsuit for as much as
$1 billion. Still, some also say RIM's hands aren't completely tied; it's also
somewhat unlikely NTP would want to force a shutdown, a scenario that could
leave it with a smaller payoff.
"I think there's going to be a settlement, and it's just a matter
of how much is to be coerced out of them," said Rod Thompson, a San
Francisco patent attorney. In
a statement, RIM said it has been preparing technology that would keep its
service running in the United States, where most of its 3.65 million BlackBerry
customers are based. But analysts, however, are skeptical about the
effectiveness of any workaround. James
H. Wallace Jr., an attorney for Arlington, Va.-based NTP, said he hoped the
judge's decisions would "bring the parties back to the table." However, RIM's statement gave no
indication it was ready to compromise, saying it would proceed with plans to
appeal an earlier court decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. "While further review by the
Supreme Court is generally uncommon, RIM continues to believe this case raises
significant national and international issues warranting further appellate
review." RIM
says an injunction would be inappropriate for a number of reasons, including
the patent office proceedings, public interest concerns, and the Supreme
Court's recent decision to hear an appeal in the eBay Inc. v. MercExchange case that addresses the use of
injunctions in patent suits. In
the meantime, RIM's customers, some of whom warmly refer to their devices as
CrackBerries for their addictive use, are getting worried. Citigroup analyst Daryl Armstrong said
an injunction ruling could lead some users to move ahead with contingency
plans. Among
those concerned is the
U.S. government, which has thousands of employees with BlackBerries. While NTP has promised that the
injunction wouldn't apply to government and emergency employees in the United
States, the Justice Department argued in a court filing that RIM might have difficulty
pinpointing its workers. NTP has
responded that wireless carriers would be able to identify their government
users with ease. Shares
of RIM fell $3.79, or about 5.8 percent, to $61.13 in Wednesday's trading. The
stock has tumbled 41 percent over the past year after peaking at $103.56 last
December. Wednesday's developments
also appeared to boost the shares of Palm Inc.,
which makes competing handheld devices including the popular Treo. The stock
rose $1.61, or 6 percent, to close at $28.38 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. NTP
was co-founded by Thomas J. Campana Jr., a Chicago-area engineer who in 1990
created a system to send e-mails between computers and wireless devices. The
BlackBerry hit the market in the late 1990s, becoming a hit with lawyers and businesspeople
who wanted to check e-mails away from their offices and home computers. But
NTP's founders noticed similarities between their technology and the
BlackBerry. In 2001, they filed suit, and a year later, a federal jury in
Richmond agreed that RIM had infringed on NTP's patents. The jury awarded the smaller company
5.7 percent of U.S. BlackBerry sales, though Spencer later increased that rate
to 8.55 percent. The amount of damages and fees now exceeds $200 million and grows along with the BlackBerry's
popularity. |
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