NTP Inc, the patent troll that nicked Research in Motion and its Blackberry for a cool $612.5 million in 2006, sued Apple, Google, Microsoft, Motorola, LG Electronics and HTC last Thursday charging their smartphones infringe the same Ur-wireless e-mail patents that RIM ran afoul of.

In Apple's case the suit names the iPhone, iPad, server software and MobileMe.

The suits were filed in federal court in Virginia near where NTP lives.

NTP is already suing AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and Palm.

RIM wound up settling because an injunction could have barred it from the market, a situation that's unlikely to happen again thanks to a subsequent Supreme Court decision limiting the imposition of injunctions when the claimant is a "non-practicing entity." So NTP's chances of getting giant settlements from its new suits are supposedly slim and NTP said it would prefer to settle.

However, since that's also unlikely to happen - talks have already failed - its best hope is for jury-determined damages and back royalties, which is going to put the Android mob in kind of a bind. The royalty rate established in the RIM case was 8.5%.

NTP's patents, whose claims have been winnowed after a Patent Office re-examination now under appeal, expire in 2012.

The Wall Street Journal says Nokia and Good Technology have licensing deals with NTP.