While it has closed communications with patent holding firm NTP, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) remains open to a "reasonable settlement opportunity," a Reuters report, quoting a top RIM executive, said.
The report quoted RIM finance chief Dennis Kavelman as saying that "if there's a reasonable settlement opportunity, we'd be there. I think we showed last year that we were willing to settle that."
The report added that RIM last year agreed to pay $450 million to resolve its long-running legal dispute with NTP, but the deal unraveled just months later.
NTP sued RIM for patent infringement in 2002 and won an injunction in 2003 to shut down RIM's service, the report said.
The report said that with only one week before a Feb. 24 court hearing on NTP's request for an injunction to halt the US service of RIM's BlackBerry e-mail device, the executive reiterated that the Canadian firm's technical workaround would avert any blackout.