Research In Motion (RIM) and TeleCommunication Systems Inc (TCS) have exhausted themselves litigating the patent lawsuit filed by TCS in December and have decided to try something different – seeking an amicable solution. What an idea?

TCS originally filed the lawsuit on December 20, 2007. The company alleged that RIM had infringed on their patent to “allow a wireless user to access and manage multiple email accounts.” RIM certainly does provide this service as anyone with a Blackberry can tell you (like me). As always, it is difficult to tell if RIM really has violated this patent or not. TCS may actually be opening itself up to counter suits and requests for damages by RIM. As usual, the Behemoths are at it again wasting money and suing each other.

A previous post discussed the Federal Circuit of the Court of Appeals request to revisit certain landmark patent cases and to look more closely at what is considered appropriate subject matter for patents. In the case before the court, Bernard Bilski filed for a patent on “a method of managing the risk of bad weather through commodities trading.” The patent office refused to issue a patent because the concept was deemed to abstract.

TCS has a patent for a ” Universal mail wireless e-mail reader”. This means that wireless users can access all of their email accounts through one system for both incoming and outgoing mail without having to log in and log out of each email account. RIM certainly does provide this service, but it is generally set up through the wireless service provider. This patent, if upheld, could conceivably affect more cellular software makers than just RIM.

Luckily, RIM and TCS are going to negotiate from now until June 12th, 2008, when they will hopefully have a settlement agreement to present to the court.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 12:52 pm under Cell phones, Legal, Science and technology, Software.

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