From a CIO's perspective, the most disturbing part of the case was that the judge could have issued an injunction that would have disrupted the most popular wireless messaging technology in use. Businesspeople, physicians, lawyers and many others could have lost the mobile connectivity they have come to depend on.

The judge in the case wanted the parties to settle, but it was clear that he was ready to issue an injunction if that didn't happen. While that may be appropriate in a claim of patent infringement, in this case an injunction would have had a wide-ranging and disruptive impact on a critical technology service. Never before have I seen such alarm in the medical, business and legal communities over a pending judgment.

We have to realize that similar cases could arise in which the judge doesn't hesitate to issue an injunction. Consider the potential harm that would result if an injunction were issued in the SCO case or to safeguard the patents that Microsoft claims to hold covering aspects of Linux. Suppose businesses had to stop using Linux next week or face potential liability for intellectual property infringement. The impact on business would be substantial.

Apart from losing the use of a critical operating system, businesses that would suddenly find themselves barred from using Linux are likely to have licensed and implemented hundreds of thousands -- perhaps millions -- of dollars worth of software that runs on the operating system. They would lose the use of that software and incur the expense and delay of migrating to another operating system. The threat of an injunction in the BlackBerry case may have melted away, but that threat was just the tip of the iceberg.

RIM has agreed to pay NTP $612.5 million. Given that kind of money, we can expect that claims of patent infringement will rise. Companies will be formed for the sole purpose of litigating patents. Seemingly worthless older patents will be given new life w hen related products or services are offered successfully in the marketplace. The MercExchange v. eBay case is one chilling example.