"The injunction would literally prevent RIM from providing the services that would be essential for the federal government, as well as state and local governments, to continue their use of the BlackBerry devices," the U.S. Department of Justice asserted in a court filing.

The government filing by Paul J. McNulty, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, exaggerated the situation with "there does not appear to be a simple manner in which RIM can identify which users of BlackBerries are part of the federal government."

James H. Wallace Jr., an attorney for plaintiff NTP, snorted that McNulty's filing was "highly misleading and inappropriate." Wallace said NTP has promised numerous times that an injunction would not apply to any government or emergency personnel in the United States, and said that it would not be difficult to identify such users.

McNulty mused that one way to ensure continued e-mail service for government employees would be to create a database of their devices. McNulty failed to mention that the government has had real spotty luck using computers for the past several decades. But perhaps that's what he had in mind when he said it wouldn't be simple.

Echoing NTP's own recommendation to the court to delay imposing an injunction, McNulty simple-mindedly suggested the court delay considering an injunction for at least 90 days, given the potential expense and complexity involved in inventorying those BlackBerries.

Counting being a non-essential government service, the government filing guessed that anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 federal employees use BlackBerry devices to retrieve their "essential government" emails wirelessly.