RIM Loses Another Patent Case, Told To Pay $147.2 Million

from the live-by-the-patent,-die-by-the-patent dept

Perhaps one of the most famous patent lawsuits -- which really highlighted the whole patent troll problem -- was the case of NTP vs. RIM, which ended with RIM paying over $600 million to settle the case, even as the USPTO was rejecting NTP's patents. Since then, RIM has been involved in a number of other patent lawsuits as well, including one that it lost last week against "Mformation Technologies." RIM has been told to pay up another $147.2 million in this case.

Of course, what some people forget is that RIM brought much of this on itself. Before NTP even came on the scene, it was RIM who started suing a bunch of other companies for patent infringement, based on its broad portfolio of patents around wireless email and mobile devices. On top of all that, RIM's business is collapsing. The company is fighting for relevancy as its latest operating system has been delayed -- and there's growing evidence that even once it comes out, no one's going to care about it.

RIM can try to put a nice spin on things, but it seems clear that the company is in serious trouble. Perhaps, next time, it will focus on improving its products more than getting caught up in the patent game. Yes, many of these more recent lawsuits came from it getting sued, but there's no doubt that RIM drew a lot of attention to itself early on with its own patent lawsuits against others.

Filed Under: patent troll, uspto
Companies: mformation technologies, ntp, rim