LawFont.com

ZDNet had a recent article about RIM winning a patent case in the UK. The action was unrelated to the NTP/RIM litigation, and appears to have been an action by RIM to have an InPro patent revoked, provoking InPro to countersue for infringement.

The InPro patent was filed in April 1996, and claimed the use of a “computer system comprising a field computer … and a proxy server connected to the field comptuer by a data link, the proxy server having an internet port” and being “adapted to access internet servers”. This combination downloads the data, “transpose[s] the downloaded data by reducing information density” to match “the specific size and resolution of the display of the field computer”, and “transfer[s] the transposed data to the field computer”.

Subsequent claims do not appear to add too much to the basic combination, although claim 4 claims this kind of apparatus, powered by a battery, “wherein the field comptuer operates at a maximum one-hunded-thousand instructions per second”. Hmm, so very 1996.

Justice Pumfrey is reported to have held that all claims of the patent were obvious and/or lacked novelty. Until I can get hold of the judgment, I can’t really comment, other than to note that Justice Pumfrey is probably most unlikely to have gotten this wrong.

Red Herring also has an article reporting a similar win in a German court by RIM over InPro.