UK - RIM v. Motorola

Research in Motion Limited v. Motorola Inc, High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, Patents Court, London, UK, 3 February 2010, Case No. [2010] EWHC 118 (Pat)

Motorola alleged that two systems operated by Research In Motion ("RIM"), BlackBerry Enterprise Solution ("BES") and BlackBerry Internet Solution ("BIS"), infringed its Message Communication System patent.  RIM denied infringement and counterclaimed to revoke the patent. 

The Court ruled that the BES system did not infringe the patent because it construed the specification to be restricted to a messaging gateway system which was operable to construct messages transmittable by a RF transmission system.  The messages sent by BES servers were not suitable for RF transmission.  The BIS system was held not to have infringed the patent because its servers were in Canada.  It followed that RIM did not offer the claimed method for use in the UK within section 60(1)(b) of the Patents Act 1977 nor did it supply means for putting the invention into effect in the UK.  The Court also held the patent to be invalid for lack of inventive step over the prior art.

Read the judgment (in English) here.