Slate:

What would happen if a rogue actor managed to get hold of a powerful patent and threatened to detonate it and destroy e-mail as we know it? You'd have the BlackBerry NTP v. RIM case — the tech world's very own Dr. Strangelove. NTP, a one-man Virginia firm, armed with nothing but patents, currently threatens to bring down BlackBerry and with it the sanity of millions of e-mail addicts. A textbook "patent troll," he wants a billion dollars to stand down. What to do?

RIM , the Waterloo company that makes the Blackberry wireless email thingy, is getting pounded by NTP, a one-person company that has only one product: patents. Basically the US patent office issued a patent to NTP that they shouldn't have, and now the onus is on RIM to prove that the NTP patent doesn't apply to them. If they can't, then they will have to pay bucket loads of cash to NTP in settlement or damages.

For some reason it seems as though the judge is forced to assume that the NTP patents are valid. So, RIM can't actually argue in court that the NTP patents are bogus. The judge would have to ignore that. RIM has to have a separate legal battle over the bogosity of the patents, and if that takes longer, then they are screwed. It's a race condition.

Fortunately, for the time being, the damage is limited to the United States only. This kind of patent nonsense doesn't apply to Europe. But that's not certain to remain that way forever. While the US government is considering patent reform, the EU Commission is trying to push through software patents against the wishes of the EU Parliament.

There is just one more thing. Lots of people are saying that RIM has handled this case badly and they should have just settled years ago for a few million dollars. I for one congratulate RIM for taking a principled stand against software patents, whether that was from virtue or ineptitude. By making this such a high profile case, they may be single-handedly helping the case to kill software patents in the US.

PS. For more info on Europe's software patent situation see FFII .