January 26, 2006 RIM Says BlackBerry Work-Around Ready If Needed By Elena Malykhina Courtesy of While the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Research In Motion Ltd.'s request to hear its case, the BlackBerry maker says it has a technology work-around ready to go in the event a U.S. District Court imposes an injunction. RIM says it would pre-load a software work-around on new BlackBerry devices that avoids any alleged patent infringements before they're shipped to customers. "Work-arounds are a legitimate strategy respected by the courts, so RIM would be fully entitled to alter its software with a non-infringing work-around and continue shipping," said Mark Guibert, RIM's VP of corporate marketing, in a prepared statement. RIM believes that existing customers should be entitled to continuing the BlackBerry service and that any injunction, if granted, should only apply to new devices being sold. "To be clear, RIM doesn’t believe an injunction is appropriate," Guibert said. If an injunction is granted and applies to existing users, a grace period would allow time for customers to install the necessary software update so they can continue getting service. Although NTP Inc. has suggested a 30-day grace period, RIM says it would request a longer grace period. Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down RIM's request to review its patent infringement case with NTP. The court rejected a petition by RIM to review the reach of U.S. patent laws and if they apply to the Canada-based company. In addition to the court proceedings, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is continuing its reexaminations. All of NTP's patents have already been rejected by the Patent Office and it's expected to issue a final ruling in the coming weeks, which could impact any decisions by the U.S. District Court. RIM said it couldn't provide additional details on the software work-around at this time. E-mail This Story Print This Story Get the latest Messaging news, product info, and trends every week.			Content Management Made Easy With Xerox Chambers Says Video Will Drive Collaboration Microsoft Makes Move To Rattle RIM Office Live Goes Live New Mirapoint Program Touts MSP Tricks Vendors, VARs Pushing Secure IM As Necessity     Messaging Pipeline's Main RSS Feed     Messaging Pipeline's Blog RSS Feed Editorial and vendor perspectives The Six Flavors Of Windows Vista Microsoft plans to release a full six-pack of Vista versions, one for every taste. Which Vista will be right for you? Hope is Not Enough When It Comes To Compliance Three Ways To Authenticate E-Mail And Stop Spam Wikis In The Workplace Review: Google Desktop 3 Vendors are now talking about how collaboration can be improved by integrating video with messaging applications. They're even talking about adding live TV to mobile phones. How far do you go before it becomes a bandwidth and business productivity drain? Video is a great idea     13% Video is fine but there needs to be size limits     25% It's never used for anything really productive     38% I draw the line at live TV     25% In search of messaging products? Check out our brand new Product Finder for a directory of groupware and collaboration tools, security products, archiving solutions, and more.