RIM had won its case last year when the High
Court ruled that Inpro's patent was invalid. The Court of Appeal
has now dismissed an appeal lodged by Inpro, a patent holding
company. Inpro had attempted to use the now-invalid patent to
accuse RIM of infringing it.
Inpro's patent relates to a device used for
accessing the web on the move, and dates from 1996. Blackberry
devices hit the market in 1999.
Inpro sued RIM in the US for patent
infringement, so in 2006 RIM applied for Inpro's patents to be
declared invalid in the UK. Inrpo then counter-claimed against RIM
for patent infringement in the UK.
The original High Court decision found that
though RIM did infringe the terms of Inpro's patent, that patent
was invalid. The Court of Appeal did not rule on RIM's objection to
the infringement ruling because it first found that the patent was
invalid.
"We began by hearing Inpro's appeal, for unless that succeeded,
there was no point in hearing the matters raised by the
respondent's [RIM's] notice," said Lord Justice Jacob in his
ruling.
The patent was declared to be obvious in
relation to previous inventions in the field. The courts found that
what Inpro claimed as unique technology had been demonstrated
before, in large part, by other developers.
"The [High Court] Judge did not actually find
the earlier proposals to be common general knowledge in 1996 even
though only newcomers to internet technology would not have seen
and been aware of it since it was contained in a basic internet
technology document," said Jacobs. "If he had, [Inpro's] claim
would have added nothing but self-evident common general knowledge.
As things stand, the earlier proposals are good supporting evidence
of the obviousness of the idea."
Both parties employed expert witnesses to give
evidence in the original case, but the High Court only found the
evidence of RIM's witness to be credible.
"Most unusually for an English patent action,
one of the experts, Prof. Eisenstein who was called by Inpro, was
held to be 'simply an unsatisfactory expert' for the reasons set
out by the Judge," said Jacobs. "Most importantly, apart from not
being a worker in the field himself, 'it was clear that he did not
research the position properly.' The result of this was that there
was for practical purposes only the evidence of Professor Handley,
called by RIM. His evidence, tested by cross-examination, was held
to be 'cogent and helpful'. So it is clear that when he gave
evidence on a point and stated his opinion with reasons, there was
not only ample material for the judge to reach a conclusion based
on that opinion, but that was the only real material on the
point."
Jacobs was scathing about Inpro's case that
the original judge had erred in principle. "In my judgment, Mr
Burkill is miles away from showing that the Judge was wrong – and
many many miles away from showing any error of principle," he
said.
Meanwhile, RIM has settled a suit involving
South Korea's Samsung Electronics. Samsung had launched a smart
phone called BlackJack and had applied to register the term as a
trade mark. RIM filed a lawsuit in California alleging trade mark
infringement, but the two companies have now settled their
dispute.
"RIM is very pleased to have reached a
mutually beneficial settlement agreement that includes immediate
provisions for the protection of RIM's valuable trademarks," the
company said.
