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Rendered meaningless.
Living in Waterloo, Canada, I am inundated by the NTP vs. RIM saga. Here the whole thing is painted as the American patent troll attacking the Canadian success story. The latest chapter is the suggestion that, given the fact that the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has issued preliminary rulings that the NPT patents are not valid, the court should wait for final rulings before judgement.
I've also noticed that many of the people commenting do not understand the patent system or the US legal system.
Fortunately Dan Taylor, managing director for the Mobile Enterprise Alliance, has been explaining the situation in clear unbiased detail. He explains how the three branches of government work here.
Today he explains why we can't just wait for the patents to be declared invalid, which could take years, by quoting from a decision of the court in the NTP vs. RIM trial:
The Court recognizes the rights of a patent holder whose patents have been infringed. Indeed, the essence of patent protection is that a party legally deemed to have infringed one or more patents shall be liable to the patent holder for damages. Valid patents would be rendered meaningless if an infringing party were allowed to circumvent the patents’ enforcement by incessantly delaying and prolonging court proceedings which have already resulted in a finding of infringement.
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