Supreme Court rejects BlackBerry patent appeal - Wireless World - MSNBC.com: "WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from the maker of the BlackBerry in the long-running battle over patents for the wildly popular, handheld wireless e-mail device.

The high court’s refusal to hear Canada-based Research In Motion Ltd.’s appeal means that a trial judge in Richmond, Va., could impose an injunction against the company and block BlackBerry use among many of its owners in the United States."

This isn't good for the ~4M Blackberry users out there--if RIM doesn't ante up an estimated $700M-$1B to NTP, it looks like there very well may be a shutdown of their network. Even though RIM claims to have implemented a work-around if that happens, I'm pretty skeptical that it will be as seamless as they say--otherwise, why wouldn't they have already done it?