RIMM Works the Patent System - Finally

Implications: A few years back, RIMM was the poster child for a firm whose procedural decisions cost it a fortune.  Back then, the problem was that RIMM challenged NTP's patents, but did so too late, such that RIMM lost its court case before the Patent Office had enough time to reevaluate and ultimately call into question the patents.  Fast forward to this summer, however, and RIMM has learned its lesson.  RIMM has succeeded in challenging Visto's patents early enough such that the Visto patent case has been stayed and thus the Patent Office can do a full and final review.

Analysis: As I have written here before, RIMM's response to the Visto patent litigation has been to try to get the Patent Office to revisit the Visto patents and ideally rescind them.  This is the same strategy that failed RIMM a few years back in its fight with NTP; but this time RIMM had started the process earlier, and (as I wrote last time) the timing seemed like it could ultimately work out.

This month, it did, earlier than expected and with flying colors.  The judge in charge of what was to be a jury trial this month decided instead to freeze the case and give the Patent Office whatever time it needs to finish its work.  RIMM will thus be able to run the full Patent Office process and likely invalidate substantial chunks of the Visto portfolio.  And, all the while, Visto simply has to wait it out, rather than getting to litigate the court case in parallel.

Expect a healthy information flow from the Patent Office over the next two years or so, but a final decision from the Patent Office could easily drag on three or even four years more.  The trial, meanwhile, is unlikely to resume for an even longer time period, either because Visto's patents will be invalidated (hence no trial) or because the patents will be revised, which will in turn lead to new work that would have to be done before a jury could hear the resulting case.