RIM: Hasta La Visto, Baby

Sued by Visto in 2006 for allegedly infringing its patents, Research in Motion (RIMM) denied having done so. It countersued, claiming the disputed patents, which relate to accessing and synchronization of information over a network, should not have been granted because they contain no new inventions. RIM petitioned to have them invalidated.

But in the end, the maker of the BlackBerry line of smart phones ended up licensing them anyway.

This morning, RIM said it will pay Visto $267.5 million to resolve the long-running patent dispute and purchase a license for the intellectual property at issue. The deal, expected to close next week, will end all lawsuits still in court, resolving an issue that, had it turned truly ugly, could have shut down RIM’s BlackBerry email service.