As an avid BlackBerry user, when I saw this I freaked out. This company NTP took RIM to court and were all like "We got patents for e-mail. Shut 'em down." And RIM was all like "Bullshit. We invented e-mail." Eventually the court got fed up of the feud and ruled more or less in NTP's favor that RIM had violated several of NTP's patents. As expected, RIM appealed the decision but now the courts have rejected the appeal and the request for another appeal. NTP is demanding that courts enforce the patent violation immediately which in turn would cause RIM to shut down BlackBerry's e-mail functions. Let's hope this isn't the case and RIM just has to pay a ton of money out to NTP.

Court Ruling in BlackBerry Case Puts Service to U.S. Users at Risk [NYTimes [Reg] via Lockergnome]

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