Hearing date set for Blackberry case

The U.S. district judge James Spencer, presiding over the long-running patent infringement case between the producer of Blackberry handsets - RIM and the patent holder NTP, has set February 24 as a hearing date to consider a possible shutdown of the BlackBerry wireless e-mail service in the United States. After the Supreme Court's refusal to hear RIM's appeal, as phonearena.com informed earlier this week, RIM has very few legal options left to fight a possible injunction. RIM has stated that they have alternate technology ready to deploy, if the Blackberry services are shutdown. Analysts, however, think that both RIM and NTP would opt for a cash settlement.

Source: The Register