RIM may take the position that it made its patent assertion in a defensive manner: it was under patent attack from Glenayre, and sought only to defend itself. RIM may further take the position that it has no intention of making abusive, offensive use of the patent - it was acquired defensively, and it will remain a purely defensive asset.
If so, there is a simple way that it can commit itself to this, while still maintaining defensive protection. This is by means of a Grant of Rights declaration.
While patents can be harmful in any domain, the area of greatest concern to the FPF is that of Internet protocols. The Internet is of such large scope and importance that it is essential that its underlying protocols remain free from patent control.
An appropriately written Grant of Rights assures that no patent claims will be made against implementations of Internet protocols, either singly or in combination, while reserving defensive rights for the patent holder. There is ample precedent for this. Numerous companies have made such grant declarations and submitted them for publication on the IETF website; see http://www.ietf.org/ipr.html for a list. A good example is the Grant of Rights made by Hewlett-Packard, available at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/hp-mib.
We would like to see RIM clarify its intentions regarding U.S. Patent # 6,219,694. And if it is the case that RIM has no aggressive intentions towards any and all Internet protocols, we propose that it make an appropriate Grant of Rights declaration and present it for publication on both the FPF and IETF websites. Such a declaration can be e-mailed to the FPF at declarations@freeprotocols.org, and to the IETF at ietf-secretariat@ietf.org.