Staff WritersThe Research in Motion (RIM) Blackberry service is edging closer and closer to extinction with the failure of the company to convince a US Supreme Court to allow it to appeal the NTP patent infringement ruling
RIM originally lost the court case in 2003 then in 2004 when it was found to have infringed on NTP’s patents. At the time RIM argued that it wasn’t infringing because a critical part of the system (the communications servers), are actually located in
Most recently the company has been trying to argue that the lower court should hold off from the injunction to shut down the service while the company had a chance to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court decided Monday not to hear the appeal. Since that isn’t going to happen RIM has to move its attention back to the District Court, but while the company says its arguments are strong, it seems more likely it will be forced to ‘Plan B’.
The company has said it has already developed a workaround solution to avoid infringing on the NTP patents, but the solution requires users to reload the device’s software, which the company would rather avoid.
The District court has told the companies to report back by February first after which another hearing will take place to decide the scope of the injunction against RIM.
There are still two other avenues open to RIM. First it has applied to the US Patent Office to have the NTP patents nullified, which could take some time and second there is the opportunity of a settlement and licensing deal between the two companies.