Who’s the biggest loser in the eBay v. MercExchange case? Check your e-mail…

The Supreme Court fundamentally altered patent law yesterday with its decision in eBay v. MercExchange. The Court refocused the injunctive relief analysis on the traditional four-factor test, leading many commentators to wonder about who the winners and losers are in the post-eBay patent world. Some even claim that eBay, who won the case, stands to be the biggest loser as it may yet face a properly awarded permanent injunction. Who gets my vote for the biggest loser? Easy….Research in Motion (RIM), which recently settled the lenghty BlackBerry patent dispute with NTP, a licensing firm that looks very much like the type that Justices Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, and Breyer described as potentially undeserving of injunctive relief in their concurring opinion. “We wrote a $600M check for what?”