Research In Motion Comments On Visto Patent Complaint

Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) said Visto Corp., which has filed a complaint alleging patent infringement against RIM in the U.S. Eastern District Court of Texas, has already filed patent complaints against several companies in the industry.

In the RIM complaint, Visto is alleging infringement of four patents and seeking an injunction and monetary damages, RIM said.

RIM said it has been monitoring Visto's litigation against other companies "and, based on prior art and actual products in market, RIM believes Visto's patents are invalid."

The Waterloo, Ont. company "believes it does not infringe Visto's patents and will file its legal response in due course." In addition to challenging validity and infringement, RIM said it will consider asserting its own patents against Visto.

RIM is the maker of the Blackberry wireless communications device.

Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) said after Monday's closing bell it doesn't believe it infringes on Visto Corp. patents and that it will file its legal response to Visto's lawsuit over RIM's BlackBerry wireless email service "in due course."

Visto filed suit earlier Monday, alleging infringement of four patents and seeking an injunction and monetary damages. The suit comes two months after RIM settled a long-running patent lawsuit with NTP Inc. that had threatened to shut down RIM's BlackBerry service in the U.S.

NTP holds a minority stake in Visto.

Waterloo, Ontario-based Research In Motion said it has been monitoring Visto's litigation against other companies and said it believes Visto's patents are invalid.

In addition, RIM said it doesn't expect its customers to be affected by Visto's complaint and that it is unlikely that any material court proceedings in the case would begin before the middle of 2007.

-Gabriel Madway; 415-439-6456; AskNewswires@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires "

Posted to the site on 2nd May 2006