November 30, 2005 Blackberry Workarounds Readied To Sidestep Patent Problems By Antone Gonsalves Courtesy of Research In Motion Ltd. said Wednesday it is preparing workarounds to keep Blackberry services in the United States up and running, in the event a court issues an injunction against the company as a result of ongoing patent litigation. A new chapter emerged in its dispute with NTP Inc., earlier Wednesday when a a $450 million settlement between RIM, maker of the Blackberry email device, and the Arlington, Va., patent holding company. The ruling was a victory for NTP, which had argued that the settlement was never finalized. As a result, U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer could next consider whether to reissue an injunction preventing RIM, based in Canada, from offering Blackberry service in the United States. In a statement, RIM said it was prepared to argue against the injunction, but also said it was ready to make changes to its technology to avoid the alleged patent infringement. "As a contingency, RIM has also been preparing software workaround designs, which it intends to implement if necessary to maintain the operation of BlackBerry services in the United States," the company said. "Further details will be made available if such implementation becomes necessary." Besides NTP's expected request for a BlackBerry ban, the U.S. District Court is also expected to reconsider RIM's arguments that U.S. patent laws do not apply to it because it operates in Canada, an argument that the courts so far have rejected. RIM is trying to reverse its loss of a patent-infringement suit filed by NTP, which claimed RIM infringed on several patents, including NTP's radio-communications technology. A federal court in Virginia had ruled against RIM in 2003, but that decision was reversed on appeal and sent back to the Virginia court for reconsideration. RIM had agreed in March to pay $450 million, and license NTP technology covered by all current and future patents. That deal, however, was invalidated on Wednesday. E-mail This Story Print This Story Get the latest Messaging news, product info, and trends every week.			AXS-One, OnSite E-Discovery Partner To Combine Compliance, Document Retention, E-Discovery And Litigation Support Morgan Stanley Muddles Through An E-Mail Mess Ignoring E-Mail Is A Sure Way To Lose Business Social Networking Connects For Business Foldera Preps To Launch Web-application Suite Report: Demand Continues To Grow For E-mail Archiving     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.