A preliminary ruling from the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) invalidates the last of the NTP-owned patents that are at the center of a lawsuit with BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion (RIM). This is good news for RIM, which just last week suffered the latest in a string of legal defeats when a US district judge rejected the company's $450 million settlement offer with NTP. The USPTO's preliminary ruling has no legal weight until it is finalized, but perhaps NTP will be more open to a settlement now that it faces the prospect of losing the entire basis for its lawsuit. Article