After a brief period of calm, the wireless e-mail patent wars are in full swing once again. A federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has awarded Visto about 3.6 million dollars in damages (19.75 percent in royalties) from Seven Networks, after finding the latter mob-e-mail provider violated three patents and five claims from the former company.

Unlike Research In Motion (RIM), Visto and Seven's main focus is on licensing their mobile e-mail platforms to wireless carriers - Sprint, Cingular, Alltel ( for example) - who turn around and sell it under their own brand names.

Visto took the occasion of its win to file a similar lawsuit against RIM, sending shares of the leading wireless e-mail player down over 4 percent in midday trading. Raising the question: Does RIM investors and customers have the stomach for another protracted lawsuit?

RIM settled its battle with NTP for $612.5 million dollars in March, in a case where all patents may become invalidated in the end. It couldn't continue to chance the uneasiness and strain a possible shutdown put on its customers.

Visto cites four patents - 6,085,192 (System And Method For Securely Synchronizing Multiple Copies Of A Workspace Element In A Network); 6,023,708 (System And Method For Using A Global Translator To Synchronize Workspace Elements Across A Network); 6,708,221 (System And Method For Globally And Securely Accessing Unified Information In A Computer Network) and 6,151,606 (System And Method For Using A Workspace Data Manager To Access, Manipulate And Synchronize Network Data) in its claim against RIM; three the same as in the Seven case.

The company views its patents as the basis from which all wireless e-mail has sprung. It’s an argument many a company will stand up and challenge. And what about Geoff Goodfellow, the man who may have pioneered the concept of wireless e-mail back in the early 80s, and even commercialized it under the RadioMail banner a decade later. He didn't patent his work, but some say what he did should count as prior artwork that calls into question all these patents, at the least demonstrating what's wrong with the system.

"Friday's sweeping decision against Seven Networks validates our claims that Visto's intellectual property serves as the basis for this industry's birth," said Visto's Chairman, president and CEO Brian Bogosian. "Our case against RIM is based on similar technology, law and patents as the case we have just won in federal court against Seven Networks."

"RIM must understand that there is no place in the mobile e-mail space for this sort of behavior. Under the law, which protects consumers from products that contain infringing technology, RIM should not be able to sell the Blackberry system," Bogosian added.

Visto co-founder Daniel Mendez stuck a softer tone. ``We're asking for our rights to be respected,'' Mendez explained to Bloomberg. ``I wouldn't go as far as to say we want to see them shut down.''

RIM believes that not only does it not infringe on Visto's patents, but that the patents in question are invalid in the first place. RIM said it'll file its legal response in due course, challenging patent validity and infringement and, perhaps, asserting its own patents against Visto.

"RIM does not expect its customers to be impacted by Visto's complaint and, given the status of Visto's current litigation with other companies, it is unlikely that any material court proceedings in this litigation could begin prior to the middle of calendar 2007," the company added in a statement.

As for Seven, its tussle with Visto is far from over. The company plans to file an appeal. And, in the meantime, while one of Visto patents in the case has been upheld, another's been rejected - in a preliminary mode - by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Seven also says it has a 'workaround,' similar to what RIM claimed during its battle with NTP, so its customers won't be affected should the appeals process not go its way. The 'workaround' will be incorporated into upcoming releases of the software and has been validated by third party legal experts, Seven says. "We believe minor alterations of the software will avoid the claims in the future, with no disruption to our customers or the user experience," according to Harvey Anderson, senior VP of corporate affairs & general counsel for Seven.

Then there's a Seven countersuit against Visto - filed in the same Texas court - for the infringement of two of its own mobile email patents, which it says predate the Visto patents by the way. A trial in this matter is set for June 2007.

NTP, RIM's nemeis from the last five years, is also now a Visto partner. Visto inked a licensing agreement with NTP last December; whereupon NTP received an unspecified stake in the company. Visto then proceeded to sue Good Technology - another former RIM legal adversary - and Microsoft for patent infringement.

Microsoft's bundling of Windows Mobile 5.0 with Microsoft Exchange, Visto said, "potentially increases the rate and manner in which their infringement on Visto's patents occurs." "For their foray into mobile e-mail and data access, Microsoft simply decided to misappropriate Visto's well-known and documented patented technology," Bogosian, added in a statement at that time.

It’s a tangled legal web wireless e-mail weaves.