The Patent Office has rejected — at least for now — claims at the center of a dispute that could shut down the mobile e-mail service
Research In Motion the Canadian manufacturer of the popular BlackBerry wireless e-mail devices, has scored an important victory in its long-running patent dispute with a Virginia holding company that has threatened to shut the BlackBerry service down in the U.S.
In an action made public on Sept. 28, the U.S. Patent & Trade Office has rejected the last of eight patents issued to NTP, five of which had been at the heart of its claim against RIM. The action isn’t final, but RIM attorney David Long says the Patent Office has made efforts in the last year to be more thorough in its reexaminations of this type, making it more likely that the office’s final ruling on the matter won’t change.
