RIM bows to Motorola; patent dispute over in record time

Another patent battle has drawn to a close and rather quickly too. Motorola and Research In Motion (RIM) only got stuck into each other in January this year, making six months of legal scuffling a record by some accounts.

US vendor Motorola had filed complaint against the BlackBerry manufacturer in January, alleging infringing of wifi related patents after an agreement between the two firms expired in 2007.

But the two have now entered into a settlement and new licensing agreement, under which Motorola and RIM “will benefit from a long-term, intellectual property cross-licensing arrangement involving the parties receiving crosslicenses of various patent rights, including patent rights relating to certain industry standards and certain technologies, such as 2G, 3G, 4G, 802.11 and wireless email”.

RIM will also pony up an undisclosed sum to keep Motorola happy, which makes it all sound very much like RIM has admitted to being in the wrong.