Money Matters, Simplified.
RIM Slapped Yet Another Patent-Infringement Case
The maker of BlackBerry phones, Research in Motion Ltd., has once again managed to land into a legal mess. The company is facing patent-infringement complaints filed with U.S. trade agency by the Prism Technologies.
by Priyanka - December 4, 2009 - comments
On Wednesday, Prism Technologies, a privately-held patent licensing firm based in Nebraska, in addition to a lawsuit, also filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington.
In the lawsuit, the company claimed that RIM’s BlackBerry phone devices, servers, and desktop software infringe their patent for the authentication system used to conduct services over the Internet.
The trade commission is an independent federal agency which takes action against practices such as copyright-, patent- and trademark-infringement. The commission holds enough authority to order U.S. custom officials to block the entrance of goods into the nation.
This certainly could pose threat to the RIM since there are devices pointed by the Prism in the complaint that are made and imported from outside the country.
One RIM device that can land in trouble
The Prism Technologies in its complaint has particularly picked RIM’s BlackBerry Curve 8330, manufactured in Mexico and Canada.
It has been reported by the NDP that the BlackBerry Curve 8330 has managed to outsell Apple’s popular iPhones in the third quarter.
BlackBerry Curve’s impressive sales helped RIM make $3.53 billion, with an impressive 37 percent rise in the sales of the device.
Blocking the device’s entrance on to the U.S. soil could spell financial trouble for the RIM’s BlackBerry Smartphone business.
Some other patent related settlements RIM made over the years
RIM is not new to these lawsuits and settlements; it had recently been sued by the Klausner Technologies (another patent-holding firm) for the visuals voicemail related patents that were allegedly used in RIM’s new BlackBerry Bold 9700 Smartphone devices.
In 2006, RIM had paid the largest sum of money in the patent settlement history by paying NTP, a patent-holding firm, $612.5 millions in settlement.
Earlier this year, RIM ended up paying Visto, another patent-holding firm, more than a quarter of billion dollars in patent settlement.
RIM’s reaction to the recent lawsuit
RIM is denying all the allegations leveled against it by the Prism Technologies in their patent-infringement complaint. It will be fighting the lawsuit in the federal court of Nebraska.
There are reports in the market that the Prism wants an undisclosed amount of cash for the settlement. At least for now that’s how it all appears to be.
Prism Technologies has also previously targeted the software giant Microsoft with a similar complaint and also managed to convince it for the settlement just three months ago.
In addition to blocking the entrance of new BlackBerry devices in the U.S. market, the ITC can also put a ban on the devices already imported by the company.