DOJ, CANADIAN BRIEFS DEFEND GOVT.BLACKBERRY USERS IN PATENT CASE

摘要

If anyone doubted wireless e-mail is important to the economic health of govts. and enterprises, consider this: the U.S. and Canadian govts. have filed briefs in the Research In Motion NTP patent case, as have at least a dozen other parties with interest in the outcome, patent attorney Dennis Crouch said. At issue is a threatened injunction against RIM that would bar the company from doing business in the U.S. DoJ said it’s a “major user of BlackBerry devices and technology to allow its employees to access e-mail” and send messages when away from their offices. It said the federal govt. can’t be enjoined from using a patented invention. The govt. asked the court to frame any injunction so as to let U.S. govt. workers keep using the BlackBerry, Crouch said. The brief also said RIM can’t tell the difference between U.S. govt. workers and private users. The govt. asked the court to require RIM to create a whitelist of U.S. govt. devices and users.