What a terrible indictment of the US legal system. A small company that does nothing is able to extort $600 million from an innovative company with millions of customers for a handful of invalid patents. All because Judge Spencer is so in love with his "Rocket Docket" he has forgotten that the virtue of a speedy trial is to promote justice; here it has thwarted it. He has let the principle triumph over its own purpose. RIM has every right to call for his disbarrment.

I'm sure the fact that RIM was found guilty by a jury and appealed the guilty verdict all the way up to the US Supreme Court did not influence anything.

RIM signed a settlement. That was their choice.

Speedy justice? This case is almost 5 years old and should have been settled years ago. RIM and NTP were both stubborn. RIM could have settled this for $10 million a few years ago.

Get some facts first before you call for action.

Well stated.

More facts: Speedy justice is a criminal justice concept only.

The jury verdict was premised on the validity of the patents. They are probably invalid. RIM signed the settlement with Spencer's gun to its head. He was like a judge trying a murder case before the victim died. All he had to do was wait for the determination on validity--that is, all he had to do was wait to see if NTP was really entitled to anything. He was unwilling to that for the sake of clearing his desk. Five years is a short time for a case of this magnitude. Only in Spencer's Rocket Docket is it considered long.

Can the smug "get some facts" line. It doesn't help your argument.

You have missed my point. Judge Spencer has adopted the speedy justice principle for purposes of civil trials in the Virginia "Rocket Docket." In this case, it was inappropriate because of the mismatched timing with the Patent Office.

You sound like a lawyer who bet on the wrong horse. No sympathy here.

This case should have been settled years ago. RIM postured and appealed all the way up. There was no guarantee that the patents would have been completely invalidated. RIM was losing customers (and not growing as fast as their own projections) because of this lawsuit. Settling was in their best interests.

Maybe I've missed your point, maybe not. The "Rocket Docket" has nothing to do with the Constitution, which is what is generally meant by "speedy justice," which (like many constitutional principles) is often tossed about by laypeople in casual conversation. The "Rocket Docket" is nothing more than an administrative expedient to keep cases like this one moving along.

I will concede that I find it odd that Spencer didn't stay proceedings pending the outcome of the reexam, especially considering that the legal remedy (money damages) would have been sufficient in this case (that is, NTP didn't need an injunction to be made whole; it simply used the threat of an injunction to hold RIM hostage to a higher settlement value). But it's just that--odd--not improper, and certainly no reason to call for an impeachment.

As to the jury verdict: yes, it is indeed premised on the validity of the patents. Fortunately for NTP, there is a final court judgment that the patents are valid. Nothing can ever change that. All that can happen is the USPTO can cut off NTP's rights going forwards; they cannot change the past.

Don't confuse facts with emotion.

Cops write you a ticket for speeding. It is mere $100, but you do believe you were not speeding.

You go to the local court. You lose. Then you lose all the way to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, a story breaks in the news that police laser guns of a type used to clock your speed are inherently faulty. There is internal review in progress and preliminary results demonstrate that equipment just wrong. Final results will come later.
This could make cops stop using these laser guns and write speeding tickets to innocent motorists who do obey the law.

You come to the court and told by the judge this is irrelevant, and you can choose to pay the ticket, few thousand bucks in legal fees and get with your life; or you can go to jail for the failure to pay the ticket and he is not in the mood to let you off the hook.

You decided you've had enough and you bail out.

Your friends call you stupid for not just paying the ticket in the first place. There is no guarantee these laser guns will be completely found faulty. You get no sympathy for staying for what you believe.

People need to stop using criminal law analogies--they make what happened in the NTP case seem screwy, but it's really just a bad analogy. To quote from Dilbert, "Your tie is like Hitler on ice skates." Criminal law is criminal law; everything else isn't. (BTW, I love the idea of the Supreme Court taking a speeding ticket case. Truly.)

The settlement value of the case changed on a daily basis. The injunction gets closer, the value goes up; the PTO acts, the value goes down. Obviously, RIM decided that the balance finally tipped in favor of settling; they must believe that they stand to gain more than $600+M by virtue of continuing to do business as they have been, or that they stood to lose more than than that by virtue of deploying the workaround.

I think every one has valid views and scenarios. True, I think RIM should have settled this years ago, but does this mean RIM will still use the current OS for their hand helds? or are we all going to have to start using the work around plan? How does this work?

Yes, RIM will continue to use the current OS. No, we will not use the workaround.

Well, that's good news. I am confused though, so does this mean RIM bought the patent's that NPT was holding? Wouldn’t RIM get sued again for continuing to use the same OS that they were sued for? Or is there some kind of agreement of usage that was worked into the settlement.

The settlement almost certainly includes a dismissal with prejudice, meaning that NTP can never bring the same patent infringement suit again. In essence, RIM has purchased a license to use NTP's technology, though it may not be phrased as such (then again, it may).

And the wireless carriers were also indemnified. That, apparently, was a sticking point in earlier negotiations.

One small point. The good judge is a federal judge appointed for life. He can't be disbarred. You've gotta impeach him. But if we can't impeach someone for lying us into a war, not much luck here. You've gotta catch him lying about cheating on his wife.

Rim did the best they could given the situation. I think 612.5 M is better than having a judge order damages for patent infrigment - no matter what amount.
If Rim had waited for a verdict from a judge who was obvisoly tired of both parties, and knowing that NTP had won a jury trial in 2002 - do you think it would have been better or worse? I say worse, much worst. It could have been an injuction which would mean that RIM's stock pluments and the company is worth nothing - plus they would still have to pay X amount in damages. If your company's stock value falls to next to nothing, where are you going to come up with the money for the damages. RIM did the best they could; they felt the judge out as best they could hoping to discover where he might side. They found out that he wanted them to settle. They did. The settlement was 612.5 M, RIM did 404 M in one quarter last year. RIM is valued at 1.8 B so yes it hurts, but not as much as having to pay it after your stock price hits rock bottom. Everyone is hard on NTP cause they didn't do anything with the patent. What happens to the guy who gets a patent but doesn't have the money to bring it to market...Is he SUPPOSE to get the short end of the stick?

Honestly I think the jury is to fault here, they obviously wanted to "Stick it to the big bad corporation" and unlike us didn't realize NTP was a little patent holding company that wanted to milk some big corp. I think the Judge did rush the whole situation and comments he did make were in appropriate. Quite honestly I don't think a majority of society is educating enough in techonology to make a decesion regarding technology the way that jury did. Also I wouldn't doubt that if any of them were users themselves they would have voted the way they did...

Can RIM sue NTP for fraud after the PAtent Office make an offical announcement that it rejected all Patents NTP filed for?

Sue for 1 Billion dollars and pay rest to lawyers... and leaves$612 million to take back.

No; the final settlement excludes RIM suing NTP.

IT IS A FINAL SETTLEMENT.

In addition to the contractual agreement, there is no fraud, no patent misuse, no anti-trust violations...in short, no legal theory on which RIM could (successfully) sue NTP to recover the $612M. And there never will be. NTP sued and prevailed on valid, enforceable patents. Forget about what the USPTO does in the future, since it cannot and will not have any bearing on the final judgment of infringement. RIM infringed a patent, and then they bought their way out of the future-looking remedy (the injunction).

What??? There's a lawsuit??? They won't really turn off service will they? What will happen to me if they turn off my service? Will I be able to download ring tones? ...change themes? tether? Why didn't somebody tell me this before I bought my locked, password protected 7290 off of eBay?

Sorry guys. I just thought we all needed to hear that ONE MORE TIME.

Thanks for bringing the lawsuit to my attantion. I had an emergency meeting with our directors a few minutes ago and they asked that I shut down our company BES and order all 6000 handhelds back into the office of technology.

They said that due to this NEWS, we have decided to deploy campbell's solution co-owned by James Lever and Sons (string manufacturer).

Tomorrow we will begin distributing the replacement solution: campbells will provide 2/3 of the solution while James Lever and Sons will provide the other third, known as the "Connector.'

We just pray this all works out well and we don't all get tangled up with this deployment.


...sorry

I own the Intellectual Property rights for the string. My lawyers (Dewey, Cheatem and Howe) will be in touch.

That was good but you forgot the IT Policy!

I'll settle right now for 3.5billion.

Sold! Send me a check.

You guys are so easily led astray! I was expecting a MF154P on that one. :->

What lawsuit?

Did you hear that Microsoft is making a tender offer for RIM?

Did anyone notice that one of the legal/rumor/stock/misc lawyer crap conversations is finally over (lawsuit old news) and now the new one... AT&T aka SBC is buying Bellsouth, getting their hands on the 60/40 split and renaming it to something else..

So we calm down after one and move on to the other...

In 5 years we will be with Sprintelatterizon... So doc, can I get a shot for that...??

-G2D

No I dont think so, but I overheard rumors that in 5 years NTP will own the rights to that name and are already preparing suit. Hell another 600 million wouldnt hurt, besides in 5 yrs they probably would have spent this 600 million already.

How bout them Bears?............

NTP just bought them.

They bought the bears? All of them? Now, even the act of being a bear, walking through life stealing honey, is a violation of an NTP patent??? What is this world coming to??? We need to keep the NTP guy away from Guess! We can't have him patenting blackberryforums.com!

All the bears. Grizzly, Polar, Panda, Teddy, Pooh, Chicago. All of them. After they (NTP) woke up from their champaign induced hangover they bought everything they could.

Man.. that money could by 2.1MM 8700's and they could give me one

-G2D

I'll sell you one

What happens when the bears relaized they've been bought and the the second amendment gives the right to arm bears??

NTP has a patent on the act of amending. The US government is in negotiations with them now. Looks like the pay out might triple the national debt. All of you who have ever edited a post on BlackberryForums.com had better watch out!

Not POOH noooooooooooo they can have Pooh Bears patent too......say it aint so OH THE HUMANITY!!!!!!!

NTP is going to RULE THE WORRRRRLD muahahahahahahah


NTP = No True Patents.