A federal jury found Blackberry Manufacturer RIM liable for $147 million in damages for infringing Mformation Technologies patent that describes software allowing access to cell phones for software upgrades, passwords, or data erasure on stolen phones. The royalty of $8/device for 18.4 million BlackBerrys connecting to the BlackBerry Server sounds unreasonable given royalty stacking that comes into play given the hundreds and even thousands of US patents that relate to the smartphone.
Thanks to Alan Cooper for the USA Today article: Blackberry Maker RIM loses patent suit over Software.
For a discussion on royalty stacking see Stanford Professor Lemley and UC Berkeley Professor Shapiro's Patent Holdup and Royalty Stacking.
Copyright © 2012 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.
