Judge Won't Force RIM to Close Down BlackBerry Network

Although it's still possible that a court could force Research In Motion (RIM) to shut down its lucrative BlackBerry wireless network because of a patent battle, a judge this week refused to do so. NTP has been suing RIM for almost 4 years, complaining that RIM is violating its patents for mobile email, a technology that's crucial to RIM's success. The judge overseeing the case, US District Judge James R. Spencer of Richmond, Virginia, complained that both RIM and NTP should have settled this case already. He will now try to figure out what kind of payment RIM owes NTP for the infringement. Meanwhile, RIM says it has a workaround that it can implement to bypass infringing on NTP's patent. The problem? It will take 2 million man hours to implement. Seriously