According to the Washington Post, the Justice Department has
filed a “statement of interest” with the US District Court for the
Eastern District of Virginia, seeking a 90-day delay so that
government agencies can compile a list of workers who would be
affected by a BlackBerry shutdown.
These workers, says the Department, should then be exempted from
any service cut-off imposed by the court.
The Department has also expressed concern that "there may be a
substantial public interest that may be impaired" if the BlackBerry
service is closed down, reports the newspaper.
The District Court is due to consider arguments on the merits of
some of the patent claims brought by holding company NTP Inc.,
following last month’s refusal by the Supreme Court to rehear an
appeal by RIM against a Court of Appeal ruling.
The District Court will also decide whether to impose an
injunction prohibiting RIM from selling the BlackBerry and any
other products, software or services using the disputed technology,
in the US.
According to reports, NTP has already confirmed that government
workers will not be impacted by an injunction, but the
Administration is concerned as to how this will be ensured in
practice.
Background
NTP sued in November 2001, claiming that certain RIM products
were infringing on patents covering a method of using radio
frequency wireless communications in e-mail systems.
RIM was found guilty of patent infringement in November 2002,
when a jury awarded NTP Inc damages of $53.7 million and imposed an
injunction – which was then stayed pending an appeal.
The injunction was lifted by the US Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit in Washington in August this year, after the court
found that the BlackBerry did infringe on some of NTP’s patents,
but that one of the lower court’s key definitions, relating to the
term “originating processor," was too wide. The Court of Appeals
therefore returned the case to the District Court for further
arguments over the claims that may have been affected by the flawed
definition.
RIM appealed, asking that the full Appeals Court re-consider the
case, but the Appeals Court and the US Supreme Court have both
refused to take the case further.
Separately, the US Patent and Trademark Office has cast doubt on
all of the patents involved in the dispute. RIM hopes that the
USPTO rulings, which are independent from the litigation process,
will boost its arguments before the District Court.
