Hearing set for possible injunction in RIM - NTP litigation.

February 24, 2006 is the date set for the next hearing, possibly on the issuance of a permanent injunction against RIM in the long running patent litigation with NTP. Regardless of whether an injunction issues, it appears unlikely that the litigation will be ended any time soon. RIM claims to have already developed a workaround that does not infringe the NTP patents, and there are some indications that this fix is shipping in latent (disabled) form capable of being enabled in the event of an injunction...which will presumably be immediately challenged by NTP. However, a new infringement determination will take months if not years, and it seems inevitable that the ongoing re-examination of NTP's patents will be completed before any further determination of infringement - and if indications that the NTP patents will all be invalidated are accurate, the matter will likely end soon thereafter. At least that is what RIM is hoping.