NTP Inc. sues America's top 4 wireless carriers

BEIJING, Sept. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The patent-owning entity that successfully sued BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. and was awarded 612 million U.S. dollars has struck again, naming America's top four wireless carriers in similar lawsuits.

NTP Inc. in filings last Friday in the federal court in Richmond, Virginia, contends AT&T Inc., Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA, Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC. infringe on eight patents related to wireless e-mail that were granted between 1995 and 2001 to Thomas Campana, whose inventions became NTP's portfolio.

Five of the eight patents were also at issue in the RIM case.

These eight patents are contentious -- the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is reviewing their validity. Even so, RIM settled with NTP in 2006 after losing court rulings that threatened to shut down the popular BlackBerry network.

And NTP has won licensing deals with other mobile-computing companies, including Nokia Corp., Visto Corp. and Good Technology, now part of Motorola Inc.

NTP is also suing Palm Inc., maker of the Treo handheld computer, though that case has been stayed pending the Patent Office's ruling on NTP's patents.

With Campana now dead, NTP is now run by his attorney, Donald Stout. Stout declined to comment on the new cases.