U.S. Supreme Court rejects RIM’s appeal
The court rejected a petition by Research In Motion to review a federal appeals court ruling that could lead to a shutdown of most U.S. BlackBerry sales and service.
In 2004, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the only federal appeals court in the country for patent cases, rejected RIM’s argument that it was not infringing on NTP’s patents because a critical piece of the BlackBerry service was located in Canada and not in the United States.
RIM then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case and filed an emergency request asking to stay the lower court’s decision until the high court decided whether to hear the case. But RIM lost that fight in October when its request was rejected by the court.