NTP signs license deal with Visto
NTP is best-known for a patent infringement ruling it won against RIM in 2002.
Context & Ripple Effects
NTP's leverage rests on the [[confirmed relationship]] established when it won a patent infringement ruling against RIM in 2002 — a dispute still hanging over the BlackBerry maker as of late 2005. Rather than waiting on that case alone, NTP is now converting its portfolio into signed licenses elsewhere in wireless email: Visto has agreed to terms, per announcements from both companies.
The timing cuts two ways. The New York Times framed the RIM dispute as 'aiding rivals,' and Visto is exactly such a rival — it has separately announced a legal action against Microsoft over misuse of its own push-technology patents. A competitor taking an NTP license while pressing its own IP claims signals how central patent position has become in mobile email.
First-order effects
- Visto gains freedom from NTP patent claims in the wireless-email space, clearing a path to compete against RIM without inheriting the litigation exposure that hangs over the market leader.
- NTP adds a second revenue stream alongside the RIM case, demonstrating its portfolio can be monetized through licensing rather than verdicts alone.
Second-order effects
- Other mobile-email vendors now face the same fork Visto did — sign a license or prepare to litigate — as NTP shows it will settle with willing parties while pursuing holdouts like RIM.
- Competitors positioned against RIM benefit from the incumbent's distraction, and licensed rivals like Visto can pair legal certainty with their own offensive claims, as Visto's suit against Microsoft illustrates.
Third-order effects
- If the assert-then-license pattern holds, non-practicing patent holders become standing participants in mobile-messaging economics, with licensing terms functioning as a de facto tax on the sector — and the eventual resolution of the RIM case likely sets the price list everyone else negotiates from.
The trend: Mobile email is shifting from a single courtroom battle between NTP and RIM toward a broader licensing regime in which patent position, not just product, decides who can compete.