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Research In Motion (RIM) and NTP Inc. announced a deal to end the latter company's four year old patent infringement suit against the BlackBerry vendor in March.

In the settlement, RIM agreed to pay the Virginia patent holding firm $450 million in exchange for NTP granting RIM and its customers an unfettered right to continue its BlackBerry-related wireless business without further interference from NTP or its patents.

That agreement is now in Jeopardy.

The parties arranged to negotiate in good faith to finalize the terms of a definitive license and settlement agreement when they announced their deal. They have been unable to do so however.

According to RIM, NTP refuses to honor its obligations under the Term Sheet and finalize the definitive documents. As a result, an impasse has been reached with respect to the settlement.

With that in Mind, RIM is taking NTP to court by filing a Motion to Stay Appeal and Remand for Enforcement of Settlement Agreement.

In response, NTP filed a court brief defending its position. "Unfortunately, it very quickly became evident that the parties had interpreted the vague term sheet in entirely different manners regarding virtually every significant provision. For example, the parties had significant differences in the scope of the non-exclusive license grant and RIM's ability to sublicense NTP's patents and thereby deprive NTP of additional royalties," said the NTP brief.

Whatever happens, NTP's case appears to be much weaker than it was before its now tenuous settlement with RIM. That's because the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office recently ruled two of the patents NTP holds related to the case invalid.

The agency is in the process of reviewing the remaining NTP patents pertinent to its lawsuit. So there's a chance all of its patents may be ruled invalid.

History

NTP originally sued RIM in 2001, claiming its wireless e-mail service infringed on eight NTP patents relating to an "electronic mail system with RF communications to mobile processors."

RIM lost a 2002 jury trial, and last August, a U.S. court found that RIM had infringed on five NTP patents and ordered it to pay $53 million in damages. The ruling barred RIM from selling BlackBerry devices in the United States until NTP's patents expire in May 20, 2012, but that injunction was stayed.

RIM appealed that decision and in the June Virginia ruling, a jury found direct, induced and contributory infringement by RIM on all of NTP's claims. Based on a royalty rate of 5.7 percent, the jury awarded NTP approximately $23 million in damages.

Then in December 2004, a federal appeals court ruled RIM infringed on the NTP patents, but still sent the case back to a Virginia district court for further review of damages.