Silicon Valley start-ups help NTP squeeze Blackberry
(Update: Visto has since sued Microsoft for allegedly infringing upon multiple patents Visto holds regarding proprietary technology that provides consumers with mobile access to their e-mail and data. Visto claims Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 5.0 infringes on three of its patents that provide users with access to corporate e-mail servers on their mobile devices.)
Techdirt has a little summary of how two Silicon Valley start-ups, Visto and Good, are allying with NTP to put pressure on Blackberry’s parent, Research in Motion. It is a new sort of sophisticated dual track investment-legal strategy we haven’t seen much of before.
Visto, a smaller rival to Research In Motion in the mobile e-mail market, said today it had licensed the patents of NTP, the company involved in a long-running patent dispute with RIM. Like its deal with Good Technology, NTP has taken an equity stake in Visto. It’s not clear if it got the stake in exchange for licensing the patents, but the wording of the Visto press release makes it sound like the stake was acquired separately. If this is the case, NTP would be propping up both Good and Visto, essentially giving them money to license the patents in hopes of turning up the pressure on RIM to settle. The Patent Office continues to move toward rejecting NTP’s patents, while things look grim for RIM in the courts. We noted with the Good deal that NTP’s investment seemed a little fishy; so does its taking a stake in Visto. Clearly NTP wants to force a settlement with RIM as quickly as it can, before the Patent Office acts definitively. That doesn’t engender much faith that its patents are actually valid.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
