RIM had been hoping to delay the court process until the Supreme Court has decided whether or not to review the case. Last week, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that a delay was not appropriate, and now the Supreme Court has followed suit.
The long-running case will now go back to the District Court for further proceedings.
The Supreme Court is still pondering whether to hear an appeal on the dispute itself, which relates to alleged infringements of patents relating to radio frequency wireless communications in email systems.
RIM was found guilty of patent infringement in November 2002, when a jury awarded NTP damages of $53.7 million and imposed an injunction on US sales of the handheld. This injunction was then stayed pending an appeal, and subsequently lifted after the Court of Appeals found that the BlackBerry did infringe on some of NTP’s patents, but queried one of the definitions applied by the lower court.
The case was therefore returned to the District Court for further arguments on the merits of some of the patent claims.
The District Court is also expected to decide on all matters relating to the enforcement of the settlement agreement announced by the parties in March, the impact of the Patent Office re-examinations of the NTP patents on the litigation, and an anticipated request from NTP for another injunction.
According to RIM, the next step in the process is likely to be a scheduling conference between the parties and the District Court within the next few weeks. The firm does not expect to hear whether the Supreme Court will review its case for another few months.
