Posted on 02/22/2006 12:48:28 PM PST by SmithL
Richmond, Va. -- The U.S. patent office on Wednesday issued its first of several anticipated final rejections of patents held by NTP Inc. related to Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry device, two days before a judge will hear arguments on an injunction on the wireless e-mail service.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is expected to issue final rejections of four other patents at the heart of the court case, but it's unclear when those actions could come.
Another uncertainty is whether the agency's act will sway U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer, who has made it clear he is anxious to be rid of the long-running and acrimonious case.
James H. Wallace Jr., an attorney for Arlington, Va.-based NTP, said the patent office wouldn't be able to rule on all the patents by Friday because the agency has yet to receive some filings from the company.
Even if the patent office issues all five rejections, its process could drag on for more than a year due to appeals within the agency and then to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Presume, they weren't approved and are now being rejected.
I'll not be surprised if NTP will not get anything from RIM. I think NTP is a fraud! There are other companies that do the same technology but not got sued by NTP.
The US Patent Office has gone way too far in allowing 'look and feel' crap to be patented.
Maybe David Boise can take sometime out from the SCO case to make sure that this lawsuit is lost correctly.
Well, suing over this kind of thing is expensive, so it only makes sense to do it if you can come out ahead. If you first chalk up a win against the biggie, you can then just go pick up your extra loot from the little guys, who won't waste their time trying to fight a battle that a huge company already fought and lost. However, NTP has not played this game smart. RIM offered them a very large settlement quite some time ago and they turned it down.
Whoever this greedy NTP bastard, now they'll get nothin', LOL! Is the guy who claimed he invented and made patent of just about everything still alive?
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