Global and Mail has an intruiging, very detailed and highly-readable story about the background to - and current state of play of - the multi-billion-dollar patents suit hanging over Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry portable emailer.
The piece explains how the whole thing got started by a boastful claim from RIM's co-CEO James Balsillie reported in four-par news story on an inside page of The Wall Street Journal back in May 2001.
This was spotted by a lawyer who represented inventor Thomas Campana Jr - the holder of a bunch of patents covering the sending of text messages from computers to wireless devices (and who has since died).
G&M reckons that the whole thing could have been settled at an early stage for "a few million bucks" but, instead, RIM faces having its BlackBerry network shut down next month, despite the fact that US authorities now concede Campana's patents, "may not be worth the paper they're printed on".
If you fancy reading a right, ripping yarn, check out the G&M report and let us have your take over in the HEXUS.community.
