Government steps in on RIM's patent dispute

[Colin Dunstan]

Slashdot brings the story that the US Justice Department has filed a legal brief in RIM's patent dispute with NTP, asking a federal court to delay any immediate shutdown of the popular wireless e-mail system to ensure that state and federal workers can continue to use their devices. The WSJ has more details:

NTP has said any injunction wouldn't apply to U.S. federal, state and local governments. But the filing, submitted by Paul J. McNulty, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said that is easier said than done. "The U.S. government is a major user of BlackBerry devices and technology," the filing said. If there is an injunction "it is imperative that some mechanism be incorporated that permits continuity of the federal government's use of BlackBerry devices," it said. One possibility, the government said, would be to create a "whitelist" of devices used by the federal government and others exempted from an injunction.

Let's only hope this whitelist doesn't become a "blacklist" in the hands of the wrong people.