A patent owned by Research In Motion (RIM), maker of the
Blackberry personal digital assistant (PDA), has been challenged by
Good Technology, a Californian start-up. Good has asked a San
Francisco court to declare the patent invalid or to declare that
Good is not infringing it, according to a report by the Wall Street
Journal.
Earlier this month, Good announced its new “always up-to-date,
cradleless system for wirelessly connecting mobile workers with
valuable enterprise e-mail and data,” called GoodLink. The GoodLink
application will run on a Blackberry PDA, although Good plans to
launch its own hardware later this year.
A spokesman for Blackberry's Ontario-based owner recently told
CNN that RIM does not consider GoodLink to be a threat. However,
apparently pre-empting a patent infringement suit from RIM, Good
went to court seeking a declaratory judgment to support its
venture.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the lawsuit cites a
meeting between Good and RIM executives in which a RIM vice
president gave a verbal warning that Good was infringing RIM’s
patent. The patent covers redirecting information between a host
system, such as an office PC or server, and a mobile device such as
a PDA while maintaining a single, existing e-mail address and
mailbox.
Last May, RIM sued another rival, Glenayre, alleging
infringement of its patent. Glenayre settled the case.
