Research in Motion Limited v Motorola Inc, High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, Patents Court,

8 February 2010

By Ben Evans

Research in Motion Limited v Motorola Inc, High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, Patents Court, London, UK, 03 February 2010, Case No. [2010] EWHC 118 (Pat).

The Court has ruled in the above case. It was alleged by Motorola that two systems operation by RIM, Blackberry Enterprise Solution (BES) and Blackberry Internet Solution (BIS) infringed its patent for a message communication system. As is the norm in patent infringement claims RIM denied that infringement had taken place and counterclaimed to revoke the patent.

In basis the Courts ruling revolved around the fact that the patent was drafted to protect messages transmitted by a RF transmission system. However in this situation the messages sent by BES servers were not suitable for transmission by RF transmissions systems and those sent by BIS were sent by a Canadian system i.e. out of jurisdiction. As a result of the above it followed that RIM did not offer the same for use within the UK as per s 60 (1) (b) of the Patents Act 1977. Finally the Court held that the patent itself was invalid as there was no inventive step.

Ben Evans is a trainee solicitor at Lawdit specialising in intellectual property and information technology law.