NTP Inc. is at it again.
The Virginia-based patent-holding company last week filed patent-infringement lawsuits against all four tier-one U.S. carriers, claiming the operators are violating eight patents for mobile e-mail services. Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. declined to comment last week; AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile USA Inc. didn’t respond to requests for comment from RCR Wireless News.
Five of the patents included in the suits were also at the heart of NTP’s epic legal battle with BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion Ltd. that saw NTP pocket a whopping $612.5 million settlement. NTP filed the carrier lawsuits against the network operators in the same Richmond, Va., court that heard the RIM case.
Carrier e-mail services targeted
While BlackBerry devices are exempt from the suits-thanks to the payoff from RIM-NTP is targeting e-mail services on other smartphones, feature phones and PDAs. Devices from Motorola Inc. and Nokia Corp. are also exempt from the suits due to prior licensing agreements.
“Verizon’s continued infringement with its present knowledge of NTP’s patent rights and their relevance to (the) defendant’s operations is reckless and willful,” the company claims in litigation against Verizon Wireless. “NTP has been irreparably harmed by (the) defendant’s infringement of its valuable patent rights.”
NTP apparently is seeking royalties based on sales of some e-mail-capable devices. And as mobile e-mail begins to expand beyond high-end business users to mainstream consumers, the suits could conceivably result in a payday that dwarfs even the RIM settlement.
Tick, tick .
But the patent-holding firm is on the clock: the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected all five patents at the center of the RIM case, and NTP’s appeal of the rulings is pending.
NTP won a jury verdict against RIM in 2002, and the Canadian developer tried to bide its time in court with appeals as the USPTO reviewed NTP’s patents. RIM was forced to settle last year, however, after Judge James Spencer threatened to enforce an injunction that would have killed service to BlackBerry devices in the United States.
That suit subsequently helped spark congressional consideration of patent-reform law. The Patent Reform Act, which is designed to ferret out “obvious” inventions unworthy of patents, last week cleared the House in a close vote; the effort faces substantial opposition as it heads to the Senate.
Ultimate rejection of all of NTP’s patents by the USPTO would invalidate the firm’s patents and effectively kill any legal action. But in its suit against Verizon Wireless, NTP claims that “the re-examinations were instituted because of political pressure and are without merit”-despite the fact that every NTP patent in question was overturned in the initial review.
Verizon Wireless “has direct knowledge from press reports and independent investigations of the merits underlying NTP’s patent rights from its knowledge of the disposition of NTP’s patent infringement against RIM,” NTP claims. “Further, (the) defendant is aware of the status of the pending reexaminations as such information is publicly available. Defendant is aware that the Campana patents are presumed valid and remain enforceable during the pendency of the reexaminations.”
An NTP lawsuit against Palm Inc. was put on hold in March pending the completion of the USPTO review. With the possibility of lengthy and expensive court battles looming, the carriers are surely hoping the claims against them are shelved as well.
