Research In Motion (RIM) received a 'small' victory yesterday when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a final rejection of one of the patents at issue in NTP's suit against the mob-e-mail vendor. It is the first official rejection of an NTP patent after preliminary invalidations of all five pertaining to the almost five year old case.

The news came shortly after U.S. District Court Judge James Spencer turned down the U.S. Department of Justice's request to hold separate hearings to determine the viability of NTP's plan to filter out government workers in the event he enforce a RIM shutdown. The DOJ has its doubts about NTPs solution.

Hearings on the injunction matter are set for tomorrow. The judge will consider damages and whether to stop RIM from operating in this country, its largest market with about 3.2 million users. Should an injunction occur, RIM said it would implement a controversial software workaround that may not go smoothly for some customers and leave it open to continuing legal trouble.

Although the patent rejections, preliminary and final, appear to bolster RIM's cause, Judge Spencer indicated in the past he views the USPTO review process and the legal proceedings as two separate issues. While the USPTO has accelerated its review, it could still takes months or years to resolve.

Many suppose the USPTO will eventually issue final rejections of all NTP patents related to the case, however, which NTP is expected to appeal: first to the UPTO, then federal court and then, possibly, the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected RIM's own appeal last month.

RIM said in a statement, "The rejections from the Patent Office were all based on multiple grounds, required the unanimous agreement of three senior patent examiners and are expected to withstand all future appeals by NTP."

Not surprisingly , NTP finds “RIM's public assertions that NTP's patents have been invalidated are flatly wrong and intentionally misleading. In fact, the PTO itself has previously taken the position that a patent owner ‘is not hindered from full enjoyment of his patents during re-examination.' ”

That would seem to include its chance to benefit from those patents, which were – and mostly still are – on the books during RIM’s supposed infractions. And there’s a good chance Judge Spencer will agree. Whether that means an injunction or damages or both will start to become clearer tomorrow.

Now all RIM users in the U.S. want is for the Canadian push e-mail specialist and the Virginia-based patent holding company to do is to come to an equitable settlement to avoid a shutdown and put this whole matter in the past.