US Government Step into Blackberry dispute

The US Justice Department has filed a "statement of interest" in the NTL v RIM patent dispute, saying that if the judge decides to stop the sales of the Blackberry, "it is imperative that some mechanism be incorporated that permits continuity of the federal government's use of BlackBerry devices." A jury decided a couple of years ago that RIM's Blackberry did infringe on NTL's patents. The two companies were then reported as having agreed a settlement whereby RIM would pay NTL £450 million. They are now in dispute about whether there was an agreement or not. If the judge decides there was no agreement he could issue an injunction against the sales in the next few weeks.

NTL has rejected any notion that government personnel would be affected by such an injunction.