Research In Motion (RIM) Asia Pacific Vice President, Norm Lo, says he guarantees the Blackberry brand’s continued presence in the Austrailan market, regardless of the outcome of the protracted legal battle between Research In Motion Ltd and NTP Inc.

NTP sued RIM in 2001 over patent infringement and is seeking closure of its email system. The eventual ruling could have implications for local service providers, such as Vodafone and Telstra. Many observers suspect RIM may develop alternative technology or perhaps pay what some say could be as much as a billion dollars to settle with patent-holding company NTP.

Norm Lo says, whatever the result, RIM is prepared for it. “”We have very strong contingency plans in place. We are in a very strong position from a legal and technical point of view. We’re confident of a favourable ruling. The US Patent and Trademarks Office has publicly stated its plan is to reject NTP’s claims and has issued actions against NTP. Moreover, NTP has publicly acknowledged that the patents are going to be invalid. That’s in the press.

“RIM has attempted in good faith to settle the matter and it’s not a small settlement – to the tune of USD$450 million.

We are very confident the court case, regardless of the outcome, will not impact our customers. We ultimately value our partner and customer relationships. Even if there happens to be an injunction, we’re never going to leave Blackberry users high and dry. I can definitely guarantee the continuation of Blackberry’s products and services in Australia. “

NTP’s meteoric financial performance is likely a large part of Norm Lo’s confidence in the company’s future. It reported $USD2.6 billion in total assets as at February 2005. Blackberry is NTP’s primary revenue stream and Blackberry global subscriber growth has increased exponentially, from 600 000 to 4.3 million in around two years. It has over 150 carriers in over 60 countries.

With growing figures such as these, it’s likely RIM can weather even a very expensive settlement with NTP – claimed by some to potentially be as high as $USD1 billion – or restructure its business to circumvent a patent ruling.

Mr Lo made the statement at the launch of Blackberry’s latest device, the 8700, which packs Intel’s beefy PXA70x cellular processor with XScale technology to handle multiple processing-intensive applications on the single chip. It has 64 MB flash memory and 16 MB SRAM working away behind the super-bright high-resolution colour LCD, which provides plenty of space to render the unit’s many pre-loaded and potential applications.