Visto filed its suit late on Friday April 28, immediately after a jury in a federal Texas courtroom awarded it $3.6m from rival Seven Networks, for infringing on Visto patents. The damages are a royalty rate equivalent to 19.75% of Seven’s contested product revenue.

Visto’s suit against RIM is based on similar technology, law and patents to the case it won against Seven, said Visto chief executive Brian Bogosian, on a conference call yesterday.

There was no ambiguity in the [Seven] decisions, Bogosian said. Likewise, we believe RIMs infringement on Visto’s technology will be halted.

But Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM said the four patents Visto claims it has violated were invalid. RIM said, in a statement, that Visto’s patents claims against Seven refer to a different type of a system than used by its BlackBerry.

Redwood Shores, California-based RIM also said it was now considering asserting its own patents against Visto.

RIM is fully prepared and equipped to deal with the matter and will continue to disclose material information as it becomes available, read RIM’s statement.

RIM also said it does not expect any material court proceedings to begin before mid-2007.

Visto’s Bogosian also implied the matter was not likely to be swiftly resolved.

Given RIM’s history of poorly assessing the legitimacy of intellectual property, we expect a protracted battle, Bogosian said. We’re geared to see it all the way through until their service is halted in the US.

Less than two months ago RIM paid out $612.5m to settle with US patent house NTP Inc after a protracted and highly publicized patent-infringement suit again the BlackBerry. NTP also had sought a US injunction of the BlackBerry in the US, which created an outcry from government and large enterprises that rely on the mobile device.

RIM saw a drop-off in new subscribers during the past couple of quarters, as a result of the NTP litigation. But RIM chief executive Jim Balsillie said, on a recent company earnings call, that no single customer defected to a rival service because of the NTP suit. RIM said it does not expect its customer to be affected by Visto’s complaint.

Bogosian said Visto’s contested patents do not relate to the NTP patents involved in NTP’s suit against RIM.

Unlike its case against Seven, Visto is not seeking a royalty rate from RIM, Bogosian said. At this point we’re seeking action from the court that would stop them from selling BlackBerrys in the US, he said. RIM should not be allowed to sell the Blackberry.

RIM has seen tremendous success with the BlackBerry in recent years and leads the enterprise mobile email market.

Visto Mobile is a push email service that promises to work on any PDA is branded by carriers including Cingular, Sprint Nextel and Vodafone.

A federal court in Texas, which is also where Visto has filed suit against RIM, late last week found Seven’s infringement to be willful and on all five claims brought to trial, involving three separate Visto patents. A hearing on a potential injunction against Seven is expected, Visto said.

Visto also is suing Good Technology and Microsoft Corp for alleged patent infringement. Visto currently is waiting for trial dates for those cases.

The company waited to file suit against RIM, in part, because of the very significant and real risk that RIM would be shut down as a result of its former NTP trial, Bogosian said. We took our time very carefully and thoroughly looked at RIM’s technology to reach the conclusion that they do…infringe on our IP, he said.

While Visto has not had recent discussions with RIM over its patents, Bogosian said the companies had discussed them over the years and that if the case came to trial, RIM would be found RIM’s alleged infringement to be willful.

The CEO of RIM is aware first-hand of our intellectual property, Bogosian said.

Visto, which launched in 1996, has roused nearly $180m from venture capitalists, including heavyweights Oak Investment Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Visto has more than 400 workers in 10 countries.