U.S. Judge Gives RIM Its $147 Million Back in Patent Spat

The Register: A U.S. appeals court has reversed an earlier ruling against RIM in a patent lawsuit. Previously, a court had awarded Mformation Technologies $147.2 million ($8 for every BlackBerry device connected to RIM’s enterprise server software) after determining that RIM infringed on a Mformation patent for software that remotely manages wireless mobile devices on a network. However, the appeals court found that Mformation had not proven that RIM infringed on the patent.

RIM used the ruling as an opportunity to call for patent reform. “The purpose of the patent system is to encourage innovation, but the system is still too often exploited in pursuit of other goals,” said Steve Zipperstein, RIM’s chief legal officer. “Many policy makers have already recognised the need to address this problem and we call on others to join them as this case clearly highlights the significant need for continuing policy reform to help reduce the amount of resources wasted on unwarranted patent litigation.”