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.
By Stephanie Stoughton,
AP Business Writer, Dec. 01,
2005
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.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BLACKBERRY_BATTLE?SITE=KGW&TEMPLATE=TECHHEADS.html&SECTION=HOME
