Leader: Tis the season to be litigious

NTP – heard of them? Probably not. Visto? Possibly. But what do these two companies have in common? They're both mobile email firms, not heavyweights by any stretch of the imagination, and they're both friendly with their legal teams over patents.

Visto announced it's taking legal action against Microsoft, claiming the software behemoth has been using its intellectual property without permission. Meanwhile NTP is engaged in a long-running patent tussle with RIM.

And now the pair have also announced a licensing deal. Ahh.

Whether either Microsoft or RIM infringed those patents is for the lawyers and courts to decide, of course, but in terms of business models, we can't help but think these actions are a nifty move from two second (if that) tier mobile email players.

What's the best that could happen? Microsoft, not known for its lack of cash, and RIM, with its BlackBerry money-spinner, are forced to pay up. There have been reports that if NTP wins, it could shut the BlackBerry down in the US. Is that likely? Of course not.

NTP is apparently after six per cent revenue of each BlackBerry sale - a much more sound business proposition than shutting down a rival and then persuading such BlackBerry-bereft users to sign up with NTP.

After all, NTP hasn't exactly been making much noise around licensing deals, customers or partners of late and capturing a percentage of RIM's profits is virtually money for doing nothing.

And what's the worst that could happen? Say Visto's injunction against Microsoft is binned. No money for Visto but a lot of FUD, a bit of wariness from potential customers – after all, Gartner told people to stop using BlackBerrys for mission critical work as a result of the NTP case – and a signal loud and clear to Microsoft it can't elbow its way so easily into a market everyone else has been putting in time and effort building up.

Nokia and Qualcomm have been down that sabre-rattling path of late too. 'You're not playing fair with your 3G patents,' Nokia told Qualcomm. 'And you've not paid your dues on our GSM-related patents,' Qualcomm responded.

The end result: not much, at least as yet. Everyone uses their phones as before and both parties will probably settle their differences quietly with some cross-licensing deal.

These lawsuits are very, very unlikely to have any impact on the end user, apart from the odd price rise or two if you're unlucky. They are simply about keeping the competition on their toes in fledgling markets – so expect to see lots more of them in the future. For the lawyers, it's going to be a very happy Christmas.