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FPF Position on the RIM Patent Assertion

The Free Protocols Foundation views the RIM patent assertion as an extreme example of patent-law abuse. This is because:

The patent is particularly noxious because of the very large scope of its claims. Note that mobile e-mail is not merely another generic product or service - it is an extremely large-scale interconnected system, whose functioning is of profound importance to business and society. It is inappropriate and dangerous for any one company to have exclusive control over something of such enormous scope and significance.

Yet this patent purports to provide RIM with precisely this control. RIM's patent claim is so broad and general that if it remains unchallenged, it will restrict a major class of mobile e-mail services to a single closed system under the exclusive control of RIM, to the severe detriment of the mobile e-mail industry and society at large.


next up previous
Next: Recent History Up: Position Statement regarding the Previous: RIM's Patent Assertion