Well I was off by one day…
Today RIM and NTP buried the hatchet and settled their long-running patent dispute for the sportly amount of $612.5 million. BusinessWeek has the details. The WSJ Law Blog had it first.
For RIM, a few days ago they said they were on a “crusade” to fight the parasitic NTP.
I think it went down something like this:
Judge Spencer might have put the word out that he was going to rule soon. The message to both sides–are you feeling lucky, Pilgrim?
Or perhaps “Deal or No Deal?”
RIM and NTP almost settled last year at $450 million. NTP supposedly wanted $1 billion at the end of 2005. So NTP offers to split the difference, and call it a day at $725 million. RIM says no, we have to have some movement our way. Half the way between $450 and $750 million gets you $587.5 million. NTP says we have to pay our lawyers, so it’s topped up $25 million to *bingo* $612.5 million.
When you are motivated, you can settle a nearly ten figure dispute in less time than it takes to do better than bust-out-retail at your local Chevy dealer.
While I initially thought the case would have been settled a few months ago, there’s nothing like the prospect of an adverse order to get people focused on the task at hand.
What’s next for NTP? I presume one hell of an office party.
What’s next for RIM and BlackBerry? I’d take 10% of the difference between the $1 billion and the settlement–$387.5 million–and start to carpet-bomb all forms of media. You say something clever like:
BlackBerry: why settle when you can have the real thing?
Then RIM should take straight aim on the fundamental weakness BlackBerry wanna-bees like the Treo 700w and the Motorola Q have in the corporate market: they both sport cameras that could violate the acceptable use guidelines of many enterprise users of cellphone/PDA devices.
Somewhere the GCs of RIM and NTP may be breathing a small sigh of relief.
And the outside counsel of both are gently weeping.