Earlier this morning, it was reported that RIM has suffered yet another setback as a company, considering how Nokia of Finland has picked up a victory against RIM from a contract dispute. This contract dispute had everything to do with their WLAN-related patents, where back in 2003, both Nokia and RIM signed a cross-license agreement for “standards-essential cellular patents”, followed by a renewal in 2008. Hmmm, frankly speaking, 2008 is not too far back, but that was when the iPhone really took off in a big way for one year already, and you can say that RIM and Nokia started on a slow and slippery road downwards, although the latter seem to have a better chance are recovering in the near future.
Back to the matter at hand – RIM did question the contract as it “extended beyond cellular essentials”, but after some wrangling in the courtroom, a Swedish arbitrator claimed that “RIM was in breach of contract and is not entitled to manufacture or sell WLAN products without first agreeing royalties with Nokia.” Should both companies be unable to come to an agreement where the royalties are concerned, it might eventually end up with a stop order on sales of any BlackBerry smartphones and the BlackBerry PlayBook, as well as future BlackBerry 10 devices. Nokia has continued filing similar cases against RIM not in the United States (as we mentioned in our previous story), but also in other territories such as Britain and Canada due to this ruling.