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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RIM Challenge of Two SimpleAir Patents Among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of 5/9/11

Here is the latest installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott Daniels, of Reexamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor….

RIM has requested reexamination of SimpleAir’s U.S. Patent Nos. 6,021,433 and 6,735,614 that claim contact alerts for incoming messages (see ex parte Request No. (15) & inter partes Request No. (5)).  SimpleAir has accused Apple, RIM, Facebook and a number of others in the Eastern District of Texas of infringement of the ‘614 and ‘433 patents, as well as two other patents.

The week also saw yet another round in the war between Abbott Diabetes Care and DexCom over analyte sensors (see ex parte Request No. (5)).

And Square, Inc. requested reexamination of three REM Holdings patents for reader cards for cell phones (see inter partes Request Nos. (2), (3) & (4)), which are the subject of an infringement dispute between those companies in the Eastern District of Missouri. (more…)

Medtronic’s Attacks On Edwards Lifescience’s Heart Valve Patents Among Reexamination Requests Filed Week of 5/2/11

Here is the latest installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott Daniels, of Reexamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor….

Medtronic has requested reexamination of two Edwards Lifesciences’ patents claiming heart valve systems for implantation, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,582,462 & 7,789,909 (see inter partes Request Nos. (3) & (4).  The two companies are long-time rivals in that market and are currently in litigation in Delaware regarding the ‘462 and ‘909 patents.

There were also requests for reexamination of patents involved in infringement disputes that we have been tracking.  One is U.S. Patent No. 7,349,012 which is one of the many patents in the litigation between MobileMedia Ideas and RIM (see inter partes Request No. (2)).  The other is U.S. Patent No. 7,917,186 owned by DexCom which is in litigation against Abbott Diabetes Care (see ex parte Request No. (6)). (more…)

Challenges To Two MobileMedia Ideas Patents, Among The Reexamination Requests Filed Week Of 4/11/11

Here is the latest installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott Daniels, of Reexamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor….

Reexamination was requested for two MobileMedia Ideas patents.  PTO dockets show that RIM filed one of the requests, but are unclear about who filed the second, though that request was quite likely filed by RIM as well (see ex parte Request Nos. (3) & (13)).  MobileMedia has sued RIM for infringement of these patents in the Eastern District of Texas.

A very important request, reported in a parallel post today, is Google’s second request for reexamination of an Oracle patent (see ex parteRequest No. (20)).

Abbott Diabetes Care has requested reexamination of two DexComanalyte sensor patents (see ex parte Request Nos. (8) & (18)).

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Reexamination Request Against MobileMedia Smart-Phone Patent, Among Those Filed Week Of 4/4/11

Here is the latest installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott Daniels, of Reexamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor….

An ex parte request has been filed – probably by HTC – against one ofMobileMedia Ideas’ 11 smart-phone patents that are the subject of its pending infringement litigation against HTC (see ex parte Request No. (2) for U.S. Patent No. 5,915,239).  MobileMedia obtained the ‘239 patent from Nokia Capital.  Reexamination was ordered last month (90/011,436) for one of the other MobileMedia patents-in-suit, U.S. Patent No. 6,253,075; reexaminations against the other nineMobileMedia patents might be pending as well.  MobileMedia has two parallel smart-phone infringement law suits pending, one against Apple, and one against RIM.

On the heels of its earlier requests against three XRPT patents, eBayrequested reexamination of two additional XPRT patents (see inter partes Request Nos. (2) & (3)).

Finally, Beckman Coulter requested reexamination of a GeneOhm Sciences Canada patent claiming a method for detection of certain methicillin-resistant bacteria (see inter partes Request No. (5)). (more…)