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Telecommunications RIM facing patent suit from rival push email firm, Visto
Telecommunications RIM facing patent suit from rival push email firm, Visto | RIM facing patent suit from rival push email firm, Visto |
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| Written by Stuart Corner | |
| Tuesday, 02 May 2006 | |
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The news wiped almost five percent of the value of RIM's shares on the Toronto stock exchange, almost half of the 11.6 percent they have gained in value since the start of the year. The move, however came as no surprise to RIM. Over the past few years, Visto has filed patent infringement suits against many of the leading push e-mail players including Infowave Software, Seven Networks, Good Technology, Smartner, Sproquit and Microsoft. Infowave settled in 2004, agreeing to license Visto's software and Visto has just scored a substantial victory against Seven Networks with a jury finding that Seven had wilfully infringed on intellectual property in the system that Visto has created over the past decade. It is this victory that has precipitated its challenge to RIM. According to Visto the court hearing its case against Seven upheld each of the five claims under three separate patents Visto brought to trial, and awarded Visto damages at a royalty rate equivalent to 19.75 percent of Seven's infringing products' revenue, or about $US3.6 million. Brian Bogosian, Visto's chairman, president and CEO, said: "The royalty rate awarded in this case reflects the tremendous value of Visto's patents in the mobile space." RIM says it has been monitoring Visto's litigation against other companies in the industry and, based on prior art and actual products in market, believes Visto's patents are invalid. "Further, Visto's patent claims as directed against Seven Networks refer to a different type of system than RIM's technology." RIM's view is that it does not infringe Visto's patents and the company says it will file its legal response in due course and will now also consider asserting its own patents against Visto". Visto claims that three of the patents in its win over Seven are identical to those in its suit against RIM. The four patents Visto charges RIM of infringing are: • US Patent No 6,085,192 titled, "System And Method For Securely Synchronizing Multiple Copies Of A Workspace Element In A Network"; • US Patent No 6,023,708, titled "System And Method For Using A Global Translator To Synchronize Workspace Elements Across A Network"; • US Patent No 6,708,221 titled, "System And Method For Globally And Securely Accessing Unified Information In A Computer Network"; • US Patent No 6,151,606 titled, "System And Method For Using A Workspace Data Manager To Access, Manipulate And Synchronize Network Data". Visto also claims that the first of these, patent No 6,085,192, has recently completed a re-examination at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). "The patent was upheld as valid over the substantial literature examined by the USPTO". Visto offers Visto Mobile, a push email offering that is branded and made available through a number of the world's largest mobile carriers including Cingular, Sprint Nextel, the Vodafone Group, Rogers Wireless, and others. Individual and business subscribers get Visto Mobile service through their mobile phone carrier. Visto claims to support for more than 75 different wireless handsets in over 15 countries. RIM does not expect its customers to be impacted by Visto's complaint and, says that "given the status of Visto's current litigation with other companies, it is unlikely that any material court proceedings in this litigation could begin prior to the middle of calendar 2007". However any delay in resolving the matter will only prolong uncertainty in the minds of RIM's customers, who might also be viewing the protracted battle with NTP as evidence of the company's maintaining its intransigence rather than adopting a more pragmatic approach and going for an early settlement. According to very comprehensive account of the entire saga of RIM's battle with NTP, published in January in Canada's Globe & Mail newspaper (prior to the settlement), "an obscure patent case that could have been settled for a few million bucks has morphed into a billion-dollar dagger hanging over RIM." The G&M described the whole story as "a twisted tale of bold inventions, hubris, pride, backroom lobbying and one colossal legal blunder by a sometimes naive Canadian startup [RIM] eager to make it big in the vast US market." One would hope that the RIM of today would be somewhat wiser. Privately held Visto claims 400 employees in 10 countries. It does not disclose financials. In its most recent capital raising, in November 2005 it raised $US70 million.
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