RIM Patent Ruling To Stop 'Frivolous' Lawsuits?

Mobile Pipeline writes that the "rejection of five NTP mobile e-mail patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) discourages frivolous patent lawsuits and will foster "wide-open competition" in the wireless e-mail market."

According to Carmi Levy at Info-Tech Research Group, "That's a good thing. The USPTO announcement sends two strong messages to the wireless market. The first is that predictions of BlackBerry's imminent demise were highly premature and unnecessarily inflammatory. The second is that life will get tougher on companies whose business model consists of using patents to sue successful vendors instead of competing for clients and markets."

Levy added that the USPTO ruling "pulls the rug out from under NTP's court case. If the original NTP/RIM lawsuit is ultimately tossed out of court, other cases that were riding on NTP's coattails will have less chance of success. The end of litigious frivolity could be upon us."

I'm not sure RIM's final appeal is riding on the rulings from the USPTO so stay tuned...