In an ending of a long-term patent case Research in Motion (RIM) agreed on Friday to pay NTP $612.5 million to take away the threat of having its well-liked BlackBerry shut down.
In response to RIM paying NTP the full amount, U.S. District Court Judge John Spencer dismissed the case Friday afternoon. The agreement will get rid of any further legal proceedings between the two.
Both sides seemed relieved that is was over. Donald Stout, NTP’s co-founder said, “We believe that the settlement is in the best interests of all parties, including the government and all other BlackBerry users in the .”
Rim Chairman Jim Balsillie added this, “A smart person puts it behind him and when that opportunity came, we took it. I didn’t want to expose my clients to this kind of uncertainty and I don’t want to expose the carriers to this uncertainty.”
The Judge had been compelling the sides to settle over a long period of time and had hinted that if they forced him to rule that neither side would like it.
Spencer had issued an injunction against RIM to enforce a jury decision against them. RIM responded by appealing all the way to the U.S. Supreme court who refused to hear the case.
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The settlement and licensing agreement relates to every one of the patents that NTP has declared and envelop all of RIM’s services, products, and technology. RIM and its partners are enabled to sell BlackBerry products totally free of any claim by NTP.
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This particular case is one hard to understand from the RIM position as now they concede that they have given a number of competitors’ leeway into the market and they have gained some momentum.
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