More BlackBerry Patent Issues

Just when it seemed that BlackBerry users were safe - Research in Motion (the Waterloo, Ontario-based developer of the BlackBerry) is the target of yet another patent infringement lawsuit. This time the lawsuit is coming from Visto Corporation, a California company that develops mobile email technology. Visto is claiming that the BlackBerry infringes on patents related to synchronizing data between mobile devices and network services.

The timing of the lawsuit is particularly interesting in that it comes less than two months after RIM agreed to a settlement in its years-long patent dispute with NTP. But there's even more to the timing of the lawsuit as it was filed on the same day that Visto won a similar case against rival Seven Networks (though Seven Networks has a counter-suit pending). Visto is also suing Microsoft for similar infringements.

So far RIM has denied that it has violated Visto's patents and has stated that it is considering a counter-suit, alleging that Visto has violated RIM's own patents on mobile email technology. More information can be found here.