Court Upholds RIM Patent Infringement, Sends Case Back for Further Review

The three-year patent dispute between BlackBerry device maker Research In Motion Ltd. and patent holding company NTP Inc. isnt over yet.

A U.S. appeals court today upheld 11 of NTPs patent infringement claims against RIM but sent the entire case back to a lower court to review five other claims, according to John Wyss, one of the attorneys for NTP.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sent the case back to trial court in Richmond, Va., because of a disagreement over how the lower court defined one of the terms relating to the wireless technology used in RIMs products. That term, "originating processor," was only used in five of the claims under investigation.

Arlington Va.-based patent holding company NTP claims that it owns patents on wireless technology used in RIMs popular BlackBerry devices. NTP sued RIM in 2001, and in August 2003, a U.S. court awarded NTP $53.7 million in damages and ordered an injunction that would prevent RIM from making, selling or servicing its devices and server software in the United States. That injunction, however, was stayed while RIM appealed the decision.

RIM officials in Waterloo, Ontario, were not immediately available for comment.

Check out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, reviews and analysis on mobile and wireless computing.