Research In Motion sued, once again

[Alexander Turcic]

Update: There's a related conference call at 1pm EST.

You have to ask yourself what Research In Motion has done wrong to anger so many inventors. Just when the company ended the four-year legal dispute with NTP by shelling out more than $600 million last March, it's now facing another company, Visto Corp., who filed a suit against the BlackBerry maker, claiming that the BlackBerry service "infringes three patents on software allowing mobile access to data."

"We're asking for our rights to be respected,'' Visto co-founder Daniel Mendez said today in a telephone interview. "I wouldn't go as far as to say we want to see them shut down.''

You can read more about over at Bloomberg. RIM stock is currently down three percent.

[Gameboy70]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

You have to ask yourself what Research In Motion has done wrong to anger so many inventors.

You mean the company so notorious for its own patent litgation that they were dubbed "Lawsuits in Motion" by tech journalists a few years ago?

Here's a snippet from The Register's 2003 article, Lawsuits In Motion files suit against Xerox:

Of course, it's all rather ironic given RIM's history of using the courts to challenge what it claims are other firms' attempts to cash in on its intellectual property. During the first quarter of its current fiscal year, the company - better known, perhaps, as Lawsuits In Motion - saw the cost of its litigation rise from $700,000 to $8.2 million.

RIM is currently suing NTP and Good Technology for alleged intellectual property violations. Last year, it pursued legal action against Palm and Handspring - both firms latter settled out of court. Microsoft and Symbian signed have signed licensing deals with the company.

[doctorow]

Hah, you always get what you pay for.

[rmeister0]

On the other hand, this is why RIM fought their case for so long, as opposed to settling early as everyone wanted them to do. There's blood in the water.