RIM had been hoping to delay the court process until the Supreme
Court has decided whether or not to review the case. Last week, the
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that a delay was not
appropriate, and now the Supreme Court has followed suit.
The long-running case will now go back to the District Court for
further proceedings.
The Supreme Court is still pondering whether to hear an appeal
on the dispute itself, which relates to alleged infringements of
patents relating to radio frequency wireless communications in
email systems.
RIM was found guilty of patent infringement in November 2002,
when a jury awarded NTP damages of $53.7 million and imposed an
injunction on US sales of the handheld. This injunction was then
stayed pending an appeal, and subsequently lifted after the Court
of Appeals found that the BlackBerry did infringe on some of NTP’s
patents, but queried one of the definitions applied by the lower
court.
The case was therefore returned to the District Court for
further arguments on the merits of some of the patent claims.
The District Court is also expected to decide on all matters
relating to the enforcement of the settlement agreement announced
by the parties in March, the impact of the Patent Office
re-examinations of the NTP patents on the litigation, and an
anticipated request from NTP for another injunction.
According to RIM, the next step in the process is likely to be a
scheduling conference between the parties and the District Court
within the next few weeks. The firm does not expect to hear whether
the Supreme Court will review its case for another few months.
