The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a non-final rejection of the last patent (#6,317,592) pertaining to intellectual property company NTP, Inc.'s five-year old case against the push e-mail provider. This patent covers five of the seven claims that RIM was ruled to have infringed upon by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last August.

NTP has 30 days to appeal today's ruling, which occurred as part of a reexamination of all eight of the holding company's patents. A final decision on the patents - while on the fast track - could take weeks, months or even a year.

Research In Motion shares leapt by over 10 percent this afternoon upon news of the favorable patent office review.

U.S. District Court judge James Spencer set Wednesday February 24 as the date to hear arguments about whether he'll choose to enforce an injunction against RIM operating in the U.S. He said the current patent office process woudn't factor in his decision.

At stake is RIM's ability to do business in the U.S. Many analysts think he'll use the threat of an injunction to force the Canadian company to settle. A settlement could cost the push-e-mail vendor hundreds of millions, if not a billion dollars or more.

A previously agreed upon $450 million deal between NTP and RIM fell apart last year, leading to this month's show down. The two sides haven’t come close a resolution since. Millions of ‘crackberry’ addicts and IT managers are nervous about what’s going to happen next.

Should RIM be forced to cease U.S. operations, NTP says it would grant a 30-day grace period to allow BlackBerry users to change services. Government users and first responders would be exempt from a shutdown.

RIM says it has technology to "workaround" the patents in question should the court issue the injunction, an idea that has met some skepticism. The technical hurdles could significant and there’s no way to know for sure if it’ll keep RIM out of hot water.