RIM loses patent case

A federal appeals court affirmed that Research In Motion, which makes the popular Blackberry, has infringed on holding company NTP's patents but can continue selling its products in the United States pending a district court's decision.

In a decision handed down late on Tuesday morning, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., reversed an injunction from a Richmond, Virginia, trial court's decision and passed the case back to the district court.

The court said in its decision: "The judgment and the injunction are vacated, and the case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings. We also conclude that the district court correctly found infringement."

RIM declined to comment for this story. Analysts, however, see the court's decision as a mixed bag.

Pablo Perez-Fernandez, a research analyst at Stanford Financial Group, said: "The decision has bought RIM some time. The decision is somewhat positive for RIM because it has postponed a final decision, and they can continue selling products unimpeded."

However, the decision is also a matter of semantics, according to Perez-Fernandez. The district court will determine if errors in the case claim swayed previous decisions - and if not, how much RIM will pay in damages.

Five claims remain in question, and a possible injunction still looms in the event that the district court sides with NTP. The appeals court ruled in favour of NTP on 11 other claims.

Chris Renk, a patent attorney with Banner & Witcoff in Chicago, said: "The decision was virtually a total victory for NTP." The big if is the significance of the remaining claims, which may be of "little solace" to RIM if the district court finds they had no impact on previous rulings, Renk said.

Any injunction against RIM would lock the Canadian company out of North America, its largest market.