NTP today seems to have lashed out at RIM’s recent characterizations of its patents as invalid, and is spinning the fact that the recent USPTO rejections are subject to appeal. This debate was tiresome long ago - now it’s merely annoying.

All of what both sides are saying may well be true, but it still beggars belief that patents that must surely now be seen, at least to the layperson, as being presumptively invalid (honestly, was the USPTO correct when it granted them or when it rejected them?) could ground an injunction that would force RIM to cough up hundreds of millions of (nonrefundable) dollars.