BlackBerry: Still legal (for now)

So maybe you haven't been following every twist and turn of NTP's ongoing patent lawsuit against Research In Motion, but there's some good news and some bad news for all the Crackberryheadz out there (god, we did not just write that). A few months back NTP won their patent lawsuit against RIM and were granted an injunction that prevented RIM from selling, making, or servicing BlackBerrys here in the United States. Obviously sort of messed with RIM's main business, which, you know, consists of selling, making, and servicing BlackBerrys. RIM was able to save themselves from oblivion by immediately getting the injunction stayed pending appeal, and yesterday they got half of what they wanted. The US Court of Appeals vacated the injunction (which means RIM can keep selling BlackBerrys for right now), but also upheld an earlier court's ruling that RIM infringed on eleven of NTP's patents, so unless they can get NTP's patents overturned they're going to have to figure out some sort of licensing arrangement with them in order to keep doing business in this country.