Patent Law Practice Center

BlackBerry Maker RIM Loses $147 million Patent Verdict

Aside from being the maker of the popular BlackBerry devices, RIM is known throughout the patent industry as the poster child for those who are sued by non-practicing entities, having lost over $600 million to NTP. This historic settlement between RIM and NTP was achieved on Friday, March 3, 2006 giving RIM a license on the NTP patents moving forward. The final weeks leading up to this monumental settlement were marked by quite a lot of posturing, but ultimately everything was resolved and BlackBerrys around the U.S. did not go silent.

RIM is now back in the news at the end of last week for another patent infringement matter, this time being found liable for patent infringement for infringing Mformation Technologies, Inc.’s patent related to wireless mobile device management. The patent — U.S. Patent No. 6,970,917 — relates to a method, system and associated software that provides the capability to manage, control, and reconfigure wireless devices remotely over a wireless network with acceptable reliability and security. After setting an $8.00 per unit royalty, the jury awarded Mformation $147.2 million dollars in damages based on past sales of BES-connected BlackBerry smartphones in the US from late 2008, when the lawsuit was filed, through the trial date. There were 18.4 million units found to infringe. See Jury Verdict.

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