As one might expect, Wallace does not see the need for patent reforms, and he shrugged off the political significance of NTP's dispute with RIM or even of his ability to earn a contingency fee. RIM's damages could be at least US$125 million, although some observers believe damages could reach $1 billion. "This is small compared to the big pharma cases," Wallace said. " Most of them involve billions in damages."

As a sign of the intensity of their differences, NTP and RIM still hold varying views of what happened in federal court in 2003 and afterward, when RIM officials put on a technology demonstration in Spencer's courtroom before a jury hearing the original patent-infringement lawsuit.

"The judge was so upset with what went on that he stopped the proceeding and left," Wallace said, calling the demonstration "fraudulent." "He came back in and told us that he had to count to 20, he was so upset. Then he told the jury to disregard the whole thing."

According to court documents, in the demonstration, RIM presented inventor David Keeney, who described his company TekNow's software, known as System for Automated Messages, which was developed and sold in the 1980s. Keeney and RIM demonstrated in court that TekNow could wirelessly transmit e-mail. RIM's and Keeney's demonstration was intended to show that TekNow's technology was prior art that would invalidate NTP's patents, first drafted in 1991, court documents say.

But NTP attorneys moved to strike the TekNow demonstration, arguing that the date on the file directory for the demonstration software was after 1991.