Blackberry Blues

The BlackBerry: staple of the today’s business world and a necessity for companies like mine. We use it all day long, to interact inside the company itself, clients via email or phone and with our suppliers. Without it, our job would be a lot more, ummm.. interesting.

So, it goes without saying that the US Supreme Court’s refusal to review a major patent infringement ruling against maker Research In Motion Ltd, could spell major disaster for the business world if a federal judge goes ahead and files an injunction to block RIM’s business. Another words all BlackBerrys will need to be shut off.

And who is causing all this? Simple, a small company called NTP Inc, which produces nothing and instead sues other companies for patents it had bought ages ago and thus causes problems for everyone, is suing them for patent infringement, another words a patient troll or as I like to say the scumbags of the software industry.

This isn’t exactly new news, because they initial legal proceedings began in late 2002 when a jury in Richmond, Virginia (consider yourselves just another name for Florida) ruled in favor or NTP, thus the court ordered RIM to cease sales and operations of the BlackBerry line. The appeal that avoided this is nearly up.

What’s next? Well, businesses from New York to Switzerland to Australia are having panic attacks. The economic repercussions could be devastating to a variety of industries across the globe. May users are hoping that RIM, will settle (with a settlement possibly as large as $1,000,000,000 USD) and end this fiasco. Only time will tell.


Wisdom of the Day: Anything chocolate coated is acceptable in the South Beach diet.