Court Grants Stay in Palm vs NTP Suit

Palm today announced that Judge James R. Spencer of the United States District Court for the Eastern Division of Virginia, Richmond Division, granted a stay of proceedings in the patent infringement litigation brought against the company by NTP.

The court also granted Palm's motion to strike the portion of NTP's complaint alleging misbehavior at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

"We are extremely pleased with the Court's decision to grant a stay. We hope and expect that the PTO's review of NTP's patents will confirm the decision of the examiners to reject them all and so avert the need for further litigation of this matter," said Mary Doyle, Palm's senior vice president and general counsel.

In its complaint filed in November 2006, NTP asserted that Palm's products, services, systems and processes infringe NTP's patents on wireless email systems. Palm rejected NTP's claims outright and called their patent claims "dubious" saying that the patents in question were of doubtful validity.