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Bill Cox answers one or two e-mails on his BlackBerry with his right hand while cleaning his teeth with his left.

The 44-year-old chartered accountant estimates that he responds to 90 per cent of all his e-mails within minutes.

That means turning the device on as soon as he rises at 6:20 a.m., and not turning it off until just before he climbs back into bed at the end of the day.

Sometimes it means reading e-mail one line at a time while driving, typing out responses in the middle of a dark cinema, or scrolling through his in-box while on holiday on the Champs Élysées.

“I don't like having open loops. The faster I can close them, the better off I am,” says Mr. Cox.

He admits to wearing out the keys or scroll wheel on several BlackBerrys over the past seven years. “It's certainly very instantaneous, and I like to solve something right away.”

Mr. Cox, a partner in Vancouver with BDO Dunwoody LLP, believes the device helps him differentiate himself from his competition. He is an example of how the BlackBerry continues to integrate itself deeply into people's lives, regardless of maker Research In Motion Ltd.'s legal battles in the United States over wireless patents issued years ago to Virginia-based NTP Inc.

On Friday, a U.S. federal judge will consider whether to slap an injunction on RIM's BlackBerry service south of the border, a step that would also snare Canadian customers travelling in the United States. But for most of the five million BlackBerry users worldwide, the biggest challenge today is learning when to put the device down.

Lawyers, corporate executives, investment bankers and government workers form a core part of the BlackBerry customer base, which the Waterloo, Ont., firm expects to increase by at least 700,000 new subscribers this quarter.

From boardrooms to bedrooms, users of RIM's addictive wireless e-mail technology are developing new etiquette on how to handle a pocket-sized device that simultaneously brings so much freedom and constraint.

Jeffrey Shore, a commercial real estate lawyer in Toronto, went to a wedding this month with colleagues who brought along their BlackBerrys, “under the guise of keeping in touch with their nannies.... “The truth was, I think they were more concerned with the Super Bowl score and probably e-mailing each other jokes. I don't know how much business is done on a Sunday evening,” says Mr. Shore, who swears that he left his BlackBerry at home that night.

“It's disruptive. It disrupts your conversation or whatever you're doing,” he says. “I choose when and if I will look at it. I check it quite regularly, frankly. But I've integrated it into my life. I don't let it rule it.”

If he's working on a big file, Mr. Shore says he'll check his BlackBerry every 10 or 15 minutes during the evening. Otherwise he scans it every hour or two until 9 p.m., including weekends. One night before a big deal was closing, his wife found him asleep on the sofa clutching his BlackBerry to his chest.

Among Toronto's legal community, Mr. Shore admits he's by no means the biggest addict. One colleague is renowned for using his BlackBerry in the bathroom, and dropping it into the toilet, twice.

Jennifer Keesmaat, a partner in the planning and design firm, OfficeForUrbanism, will push a stroller with one arm and tap messages with in the other.

While taking her 5-year-old out last Halloween, Ms. Keesmaat was hit with a pang of guilt for using her BlackBerry at the same time. Then she rationalized that the only reason she was able to get away from the office for the evening was because she was able to stay remotely connected to her work computer.

She and other users acknowledge that along with the freedom, the technology also creates higher expectations from employees and customers. “Even if you're picking up an armful of kids, the expectation is you're going to be available and on the ball,” she says.

The Toronto architect and her husband, Tom Freeman, relish the flexibility their BlackBerrys give them to juggle running their own businesses while raising two small children. But they are also vigilant about controlling how the technology affects their personal lives.

“We're really, really conscious about our quality of life and the time we have with each other and our children, and how easy it is for that time to get compromised. So we're conscious that our BlackBerrys add to that time and that they do not hinder it,” says Mr. Freeman, who runs All-A-Board Youth Ventures Inc., a charitable organization helping at-risk youths.

Their devices may be on in the evenings or weekends, but they get put aside for “key family moments” such as dinner. And while they use mobile e-mail to communicate with each other throughout the day, they both insist they know better than to ever try to settle contentious issues via BlackBerry. “If I'm upset about something with Tom, I would never, ever tell him by e-mail,” Ms. Keesmaat says. “Short, chatty e-mails on a BlackBerry are a bad method for communicating any emotion,” Mr. Freeman adds.

Sabine Steinbrecher fell in love with her BlackBerry atop a Colorado mountain when she realized she could clear her mind of work issues by checking her e-mail in-box 2,100 kilometres away.

The 39-year-old entrepreneur, who is president and chief executive officer of Learning Library Inc., says the BlackBerry has become “her tool for everything,” making her far more efficient and effective than she was without it.

“I respond to it when I know it's not going to be offensive,” she says. “This is not a Pavlovian thing for me. The device doesn't control me, I control the device.”

Like most BlackBerry users, Ms. Steinbrecher has found the device has become a tool for managing personal affairs as well as business.

Each year she drives in the Baja desert race, claiming three victories in the Baja 1000 in the past five years. Last year, her team's engine blew up. The previous year, the team's vehicle rolled over. With her BlackBerry, she is now able to give updates throughout the 24-hour race. “My mom likes to know that I'm still alive,” she says.