Blackberry Jam: Thumbing New Yorkers Rue a Ruling of the Court

What do New Yorkers think of yesterday's Supreme Court decision not to review a patent case that could force the shutdown of service for users of the BlackBerry handheld e-mail device?

Whether the news was greeted with panic or joy depended, it seemed, on what users of the device think of the service that has so many fast-paced New Yorkers typing away at their e-mails as they travel to work or lunch or a meeting or home. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

"I live by it," a 31-year-old banker, Darryl Payne, told The New York Sun as he waited for a train in Pennsylvania Station. "I use it at least 30 times a day. Losing it would hurt significantly."

Many of those the Sun questioned yesterday shared Mr. Payne's sentiments.

"It will be bad" if service was ended, said Nancy Akeson, 38, who runs a company that manages the financial services of affluent families. "Whenever I'm not in a meeting, I'm on my BlackBerry," she said, shortly before she received an e-mail inviting her to dinner.

A more pressing issue, a management consultant based in Rye, N.Y., Peter Klein, said, would be the loss of realtime communication. The wireless device, by allowing one to respond to clients immediately, "proves that you're committed to them, proves that you're action-oriented, and proves that you're responsive to their needs quickly."

Called by some the "CrackBerry" to describe the addictive hold it has over people who work in finance, marketing, government, and a host of other industries, the BlackBerry has made such an incursion on daily life that the hit HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" even ran an episode in which one character receives another's suicide note via email on her BlackBerry - a "suicide BlackBerry!" she says.

Like Marley's ghost chained to his bankbooks in Dickens's "A Christmas Carol," some surveyed by the Sun yesterday said they would rather be rid of their BlackBerries, and almost hoped the courts would end the constant availability their devices enabled - and required.

"The problem is people think you must respond immediately," Ms. Akeson said.

The president of a Washington-based employment and training company called ResCare, Vincent Doran, 55, said if BlackBerry service were ended, he would "thank God that I won't get any more business e-mails."

"I'd rather spend time with my kids," a sales manager, Merrit Hartblay, said.

Research in Motion had asked the Supreme Court to reverse a November 2002 decision by a Virginia jury, which found that the technology behind the BlackBerry violated patents held by a small patent-holding firm based in Arlington, Va., NTP Incorporated. The Ontario-based Research in Motion had argued that American patent law should not apply to Canadian companies.

Most of those the Sun surveyed yesterday said they assumed the two companies would reach a deal. "I find it hard to believe they won't settle, "a computer consultant, Jeffrey Levine, said. "It would hurt too many people" not to.

A spokesman for Research in Motion, Mark Guibert, said yesterday in a statement, "RIM has consistently acknowledged that Supreme Court review is granted in only a small percentage of cases, and we were not banking on Supreme Court review. The Patent Office continues its reexaminations with special dispatch, RIM's legal arguments for the District Court remain strong and our software workaround designs remain a solid contingency."

Though many questioned said they did not know enough about the specifics of the court battle to judge its merits, the majority of those who did proffer an opinion thought NTP's case was legitimate.

Mr.Klein, 59, said it was "outrageous ... that BlackBerry apparently didn't do sufficient homework to learn there was a real issue with patents and deal with it much earlier." He added that Research in Motion should "pay the licensing that's necessary and appropriate and get on with business."

If BlackBerry service were to end, many questioned said they would cope.

"I'd find something else. Go back to the Flintstones way," the manager of an Internet company's sales team, K.J. Jones, 30, told the Sun.

"There's other services out there," a commercial furniture salesman, Steven Cummo, said. "You got to roll with the punches."

RIM shares, traded on Nasdaq, closed yesterday at $64.25 a share, down more than 3.5%.