According to an article posted online at PCWorld.com, Reasearch In Motion (RIM), the company that brought us the widely-used Blackberry, could be facing a shutdown of their entire Blackberry service, rendering millions of users shit out of luck.

The article reads:

A federal judge won’t hold up court proceedings in NTP’s patent lawsuit against Research In Motion, opening the door to a possible injunction that would stop sales of BlackBerry mobile e-mail devices, and shut down BlackBerry service, in the U.S. RIM had filed two motions, one to enforce an agreement with NTP to settle the case and another to stop the court proceedings while the Patent and Trademark Office re-examines NTP’s patents. Judge James Spencer of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Wednesday denied both motions. He ruled that the parties don’t have a valid settlement agreement and said the district court could not hold up the case during a patent re-examination that could take years.

It looks like whatever the Judge rules, Blackberry are knee deep in crap - and whether it’s a billion dollar fine, or the complete shutdown of their service, the end-user will suffer… if they are slammed with the fine, how do you think they’ll recoup that cost? More than likely by raising their monthly charges to their consumers. You don’t honestly think they’ll foot the bill do you?