All those US Crackberry addicts can relax and go back to thumb-twiddling with a clear conscience. Here’s the Toronto Star‘s report of the outcome of the legal poker game between RIM and NTP:

More than two million Americans and the U.S. government are breathing easier today knowing that their BlackBerry devices, those highly addictive email gadgets invented and perfected in Canada, have escaped the horror of a nationwide ban.

Canadian tech darling Research In Motion Ltd. announced yesterday it has paid a whopping $612.5 million (U.S.) to patent nemesis NTP Inc., ending more than four years of hostile litigation and heeding the advice of a U.S. judge poised to trigger a BlackBerry blackout on the world’s largest economic power.

Shares in RIM surged nearly 20 per cent higher in after-hours trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Don’t you just love that phrase “Canadian tech darling”? Who writes this drivel?