In full-page advertisements in eight United States newspapers, Research in Motion (‘RIM’) yesterday called for urgent patent reforms.

RIM, hitherto beleaguered by a long-running patent dispute with arch rival NTP Inc, recently settled the dispute for the princely sum of $612.5m. Chief Executive Officers Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie stated that RIM was pleased to put this matter behind it and ‘remove any uncertainty’ from its customers’ minds. With complete disablement of the Blackberry service a real possibility just weeks ago, the announcement was enthusiastically welcomed by shareholders and customers:

You can rest assured that BlackBerry is here to stay.

As to the lingering question of why the patent system should allow such a bizarre set of circumstances to threaten millions of American customers in the first place, we share your concern. The good news is that this topic is currently receiving much more attention from policymakers and the Supreme Court and we hope the patent system will evolve to close the loopholes and become more balanced.

The complete text of the Open Letter is available on its website.