Sharing Nicely

IPR in the headlines again. RIM, the Canadian company behind the hugely successful Blackberry mobile e-mail device, is under threat from NTP, a Virgina based US company that holds NO ASSETS (including no website / at least not one found on the first few google pages), but a bunch of patents. NTP says that RIM is infringing on technology they own and is obviously looking to get a piece of RIM’s business in the US.

I have not done further research on this, but it seems that this is the first headline case of a patent raider taking on a very visible and successful company and possibly winning in the court. There is a lot of economic research on patent length and scope and how increasingly patents are used for anti-competitive behaviour, but academia needs to step up the pace if it wants to keep up with how bad this has already become and suggest some solutions.

See google news articles here.