"Judge delays BlackBerry US shutdown"

No it wouldn't have been. Nothing requires that the inventor obtain a patent. Patents are often a very bad idea in the first place, especially for a small company that actually wants to manufacture and sell a product. The patent process puts their idea into the public domain where everyone can see it. If a large company wants to steal their idea, the small company has no recourse because they don't have the resources to defend their patent, and the large company can usually find prior art. They are better off coming to market quickly, making their money, then moving on to the next idea before a swarm of competitors enter the market in a race to the bottom.

Copyrights are another story. For Apple, copyrighting the code in the system ROMs is what enabled them to stomp out the clones.

You can profit from an invention without patenting it. Patents are a lose-lose proposition to the small inventor. Read some of Don Lancaster's writings on the subject of patents, i.e.

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So far. With the invalidation of the patents, if RIM and NTP don't settle, RIM now has a much better chance of an appeal being heard.

It's not over until it's over. A jury decision against RIM is just the beginning, not the end.

Certainly, we've not had a USPTO patent examiner yet who even had half a clue. What we spend on the patent attorneys dealing with the examiners' idiocy is much more than it would cost for a competent examiner.

-- Mark

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Source: The "Blatant Opportunist" The author, a self-proclaimed "guru" with no apparent legal background, also wrote: "Incredible Secret Money Machine II" Need I say more?

It's actually not about big companies vs. "small inventors". See "Small Inventors Complain About Patent Reform -- Miss The Point" at

I think that a lot of companies don't even want examiners with a clue. I was at a company yesterday that proudly has its recent patents displayed on the wall on plaques. I had to laugh at some of them, since they were so clearly not defensible. They like to collect patents because it looks good to say "our company was granted 100 patents last year." The last thing that these companies want is for the patent examiner to be looking for reasons not to grant a patent.

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It does *not* put it into the "public domain"! It does involve disclosure, in return for the legal monopoly, a process that promotes the advancement of knowledge.

Nonsense -- valid patents are defended successfully all the time. It's the shaky patents that may not be worth defending.

If so, the patent is invalid. Sheesh.

Sometimes yes; sometimes no.

Copyright doesn't stop clones. Just ask IBM.

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It's over. RIM already lost on appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. You clearly don't understand the law.

Once all the patents are permanently invalidated, RIM will have better grounds to appeal to the Supreme Court again. Unless of course a settlement is reached in the meantime. NTP is getting very worried right now, and will be less obstinate in agreeing to a settlement.

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Game actually over. RIM already lost on appeal, all the way to the Supreme Court. You clearly don't understand the law.

To clarify this, RIM could re-appeal its case to the Supreme Court. Usually such re-appeals are a long shot, but in this case, there is new evidence, specifically the patent invalidations. If a settlement is not reached, RIM is certain to re-appeal to the Supreme Court. Similarly, NTP is certainly going to appeal the invalidation of its patents. The Supreme Court will probably delay the hearing of any appeal until the patent issue is settled. Even if RIM has to go to its workaround plan, neither side is going to give up.

The bottom line is that this thing still has a long way to go in the courts if no settlement is reached. The fat lady hasn't sung yet.

SMS hath wroth:

Yep. Actually, there seems to be a problem with the original 2002 Virginia decision. I got this over the phone yesterday so I can't provide any authoritative evidence. It seems that the entire case rested on RIM proving that there was prior art for radio email.

To prove his point, RIM's lawyers had Mr. Keeney perform a dramatic demonstration for the jury. Using two old laptop computers and a pager, he explained how he could send a text message using SAM. Then he typed "Tommy, the deal is closed" which quickly appeared on the pager.

The demonstration was crucial for RIM because it proved that Mr. Keeney's work had predated Mr. Campana's by at least four years and it made his 1991 patents invalid.

The only problem was that to get the demonstration to work, TeckNow and RIM had secretly swapped in newer software. NTP's lawyer spotted the discrepancy and cornered Mr. Keeney and RIM officials during cross-examination. After a few more minutes of struggling to explain how the newer version was installed, Judge Spencer cut Mr. Keeney off and told the jury to leave the room. "I'll count to 10. I don't want to yell at you," the judge said, admonishing RIM's legal team for the deception.

Apparently, the problem was that the old version of the software simply didn't run on the two laptops. No clue why it didn't run but I'll guess the usual MSDOS config.sys issues. If RIM could get the original TeckNow software to run the demo, the evidence of prior art would be conclusive. Why this didn't appear in the appeal is beyond me. It's academic now as the USPTO has invalidated the patents specifically because of this prior art.

No points for the limited technical patience of the judge, or the attempted deception by RIM. As I previously mumbled, there are no good guys in this mess.

Yep, especially with the politicians in washington involved. I keep waiting for a NTP to agree to a reasonable settlement.

Well, not quite, what happened was 'the guy' at NTP was reading the paper and spotted where RIM was going after people for violating 'RIM's' patients. Upon closer examination he flet like these may be 'my' patients and off we went to the mess today. I wonder if RIM had not been going after some of its smaller rivals if this mess would have ever emerged.

Regardless of the technical merits, the thing that sank RIM was lieing and getting caught lieing in front of the jury. This is just not a good thing to do. Tends to turn you into the bad guy with the jury no matter what else happens.

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

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Bzzzt! Nope. Sorry. But thanks for playing.

Actually she has.

The jury renders judgement of the disputed facts in a case. The judge then issues a ruling in light of that determination.

They will not prevail, go touch base with a lawyer, the appeals process is about process. An appeals court will not over rule the jury short of finding some level of misconduct or error (judicial) in the case. The pateint office acting after the fact doesn't alter the reality of this. It is the nature of the civil courts.

Exactly and that long road lead to the SCOTUS refusing to hear the case and over rule the appealette levels who found no legal error in the original proceeding. This is why it is now back in the hands of the trial judge.

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

Not necessarily, granted, but do you really think Congress won't dance with him who brung 'em?

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

Hasn't Apple profitted? just to refer back to a rather poor example for this discussion.

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

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Doubtful. Regardless, that boondoggle proved that (1) the "expert" wasn't and (2) the RIM lawyers were unethical. RIM deserved to and did lose.

As I've pointed out before, findings of fact by a jury cannot (normally) be appealed, only rulings and conclusions of law.

It's not academic -- that has no bearing on the jury verdict.

Nope. RIM already lost on appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. All that's left is for either (1) settlement or (2) judge's final ruling. In the latter case RIM could appeal the amount of the award, but only that -- it can't re-litigate the case and the findings of fact by the jury.

True, and I confess to having state the first sentance badly.

Well since we are being techincal, the effect is upholding the lower court's decission

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.