The legal chess battle between BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. and patent-holding company NTP Inc. continues, with new patent rulings from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office bolstering RIM’s position in the case. The news comes as an unknown number of RIM’s BlackBerry customers suffered two brief service outages during the past week-disruptions that RIM has so far declined to explain.
The patent office’s announcements sent RIM’s stock price up from around $74 per share to as high as $81.60 per share Thursday. The patent office has rejected four of the five patents that NTP claims RIM is infringing. The office is still reviewing the final patent.
However, it’s unclear exactly what effect the patent office’s rulings will have on the case. Generally, courts have ignored patent office rulings in ongoing litigation. Further, NTP can appeal the rulings through the patent office and ultimately through the district court. Nonetheless, the rejection of NTP’s wireless e-mail patents potentially gives RIM stronger footing in its court battle.
Separately, RIM said its BlackBerry service went down on Friday afternoon and again briefly Wednesday. The company could not immediately provide details on the outages, including how many customers were affected, what services were unavailable and whether the glitch affected the company’s international operations. RIM said the Friday disruption affected BlackBerry service in the United States for several hours before being restored. The company said the outage Wednesday was not related to the Friday disturbance.
