"BlackBerry maker Research in Motion said Friday it agreed to pay $612.5 million to patent holding company NTP to settle a long-running dispute that had threatened to shut down the popular wireless e-mail service for its 3 million users. Canadian-based Research in Motion (Research) announced the settlement late Friday ahead of a U.S. judge's expected ruling on damages in the case," reports CNN Money.
Steve Maebius, an intellectual property lawyer with Foley & Lardner said: "The patent office just issued its second final rejection on NTP's patents -- meaning that it was almost to point where the patents were ruled invalid. But that development just came about too late to be relevant to the district court proceedings."
Comment: Will the insanity ever end?