This sort of private accommodation, in which a pair of patent-holding companies grant each other reciprocal patent immunity, is all too common in the patent world.
Just as we oppose patents in general, we oppose such two-party patent trading. While these private agreements are advantageous to the companies involved, they leave the rest of the industry fully exposed to the detrimental effects of harmful patents.
We interpret RIM's declining to seek legal validation of the patent as indicative of their awareness that it cannot survive this process. We also believe that our efforts in identifying the prior art were a likely contributing factor in creating this awareness, and in bringing about the settlement between RIM and Glenayre. However the purpose of our collaboration with Glenayre was to defeat the patent conclusively in a court of law, not to achieve a private accommodation for Glenayre. While the settlement with RIM is advantageous for Glenayre, the threat to the rest of the industry remains unchanged.
We are disappointed that Glenayre chose to act with such narrow self-interest. Instead of making a private accommodation, we would have preferred that Glenayre take advantage of the opportunity to press its patent challenge to the legal limit, thereby conclusively invalidating the patent for the benefit of everyone. We find Glenayre's public statement of the patent's validity to be particularly disappointing.
But be that as it may, since the patent assertion was not subjected to legal adjudication, the patent has not yet been invalidated. RIM has in no way renounced the patent, or forsworn to assert the patent against other companies in the future. Indeed, Glenayre's acknowledgement of the patent's validity, made under the terms of their settlement, clearly signals that RIM continues to regard the patent as a strategic asset.
Thus the potential for patent abuse by RIM persists, and will persist until such time as the patent is legally invalidated, or until RIM undertakes to renounce future assertions of the patent.