Research In Motion's Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said Thursday that his company has a work around engineered and tested that will null and void the patent infringement claims by NTP. RIM has been in a years long legal battle with patent holding firm NTP over claimed patent infringement in RIM's BlackBerry product line.
bq. "Part of what we have done is a workaround. We've completed it. We've tested it and we have a legal opinion on it, so it's an option... So the architecture of it, and I'll give no more comments beyond this, works for all BlackBerries out there."
It's not clear when more information about this workaround around will become public. Earlier this month RIM took NTP back to court because RIM believes NTP has not lived up to its part of the $450 million settlement reached in March. Because the case is back in court, it's possible that RIM will be forced to halt the sale of BlackBerries until a settlement is reached.
[via Engadget]
The US Patent Office is currently re-evaluating the patents at the heart of the case against RIM. Already one of the five has been revoked. With their case possibly falling apart, it's not clear what came between them and finishing the $450 million settlement.