Settlement Reached in BlackBerry Dispute
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By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer 1 hour, 4 minutes ago NEW YORK - The maker of the BlackBerry e-mail device Friday said it settled its long-running patent dispute with a small Virginia-based firm, averting a possible court-ordered shutdown of the BlackBerry system and a disruption of wireless service for millions of users. ADVERTISEMENT Research In Motion Ltd. has paid NTP Inc. $612.5 million in a "full and final settlement of all claims," the companies said. James Balsillie, RIM's co-chief executive, said the company was "taking one for the team," sparing its customers and partners the uncertainty of litigation. "We're happy to do that to support the team, but do we feel good about it? No," Balsillie said. At a hearing last week, NTP had asked a federal court in Richmond, Va., for an injunction blocking the continued use of key technologies underpinning the BlackBerry wireless e-mail service. At the hearing Friday, Judge James R. Spencer expressed impatience with RIM and urged a settlement. "He basically questioned the sanity of RIM, and said it wasn't acting very rationally," said Rod Thompson, patent attorney at Farella, Braun and Martel in San Francisco. "His prodding of the parties worked." The settlement is on the low end of expectations, Thompson said, especially since RIM will not have to pay any future royalties. There had also been talk of NTP receiving a stake in RIM. Shares of RIM shot up $13.78, or 19 percent, to $85.70 during after-hours trading, when the settlement was announced. They had closed 53 cents higher at $71.92 in regular trading Friday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. "NTP is pleased that the issue has been resolved and looks forward to enhancing its businesses," said Donald Stout, NTPs co-founder, in a written statement. Thomas Campana Jr., the other founder of Arlington, Va.-based NTP, in 1990 created a system to send e-mails between computers and wireless devices. Campana died in 2004. He is survived by his wife, who owns a large stake in NTP. RIM, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, had already put away $450 million in escrow, the amount of a settlement in 2005 that later fell apart. RIM will record the additional $162.5 million in its fourth-quarter results, it said. The settlement ends a period of anxiety for many of the more than 3 million BlackBerry users in the United States. Uncertainty over the outcome had some customers wondering whether they would experiences brief outages or even a shutdown. "I'm relieved," said Matt Latt
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By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer 1 hour, 4 minutes ago NEW YORK - The maker of the BlackBerry e-mail device Friday said it settled its long-running patent dispute with a small Virginia-based firm, averting a possible court-ordered shutdown of the BlackBerry system and a disruption of wireless service for millions of users. ADVERTISEMENT Research In Motion Ltd. has paid NTP Inc. $612.5 million in a "full and final settlement of all claims," the companies said. James Balsillie, RIM's co-chief executive, said the company was "taking one for the team," sparing its customers and partners the uncertainty of litigation. "We're happy to do that to support the team, but do we feel good about it? No," Balsillie said. At a hearing last week, NTP had asked a federal court in Richmond, Va., for an injunction blocking the continued use of key technologies underpinning the BlackBerry wireless e-mail service. At the hearing Friday, Judge James R. Spencer expressed impatience with RIM and urged a settlement. "He basically questioned the sanity of RIM, and said it wasn't acting very rationally," said Rod Thompson, patent attorney at Farella, Braun and Martel in San Francisco. "His prodding of the parties worked." The settlement is on the low end of expectations, Thompson said, especially since RIM will not have to pay any future royalties. There had also been talk of NTP receiving a stake in RIM. Shares of RIM shot up $13.78, or 19 percent, to $85.70 during after-hours trading, when the settlement was announced. They had closed 53 cents higher at $71.92 in regular trading Friday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. "NTP is pleased that the issue has been resolved and looks forward to enhancing its businesses," said Donald Stout, NTPs co-founder, in a written statement. Thomas Campana Jr., the other founder of Arlington, Va.-based NTP, in 1990 created a system to send e-mails between computers and wireless devices. Campana died in 2004. He is survived by his wife, who owns a large stake in NTP. RIM, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, had already put away $450 million in escrow, the amount of a settlement in 2005 that later fell apart. RIM will record the additional $162.5 million in its fourth-quarter results, it said. The settlement ends a period of anxiety for many of the more than 3 million BlackBerry users in the United States. Uncertainty over the outcome had some customers wondering whether they would experiences brief outages or even a shutdown. "I'm relieved," said Matt Latt
It's a repost, but also, in the future, please just post a link to the story rather than posting the entire text here. Jon Sagara Look at him. He runs like a Welshman. Doesn't he run like a Welshman? Doesn't he? I think he runs like a Welshman. Sagara.org | Blog | My Articles