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Research In Motion Ltd. has cleared several legal hurdles in the past 24 hours, but analysts are warning that significant risks remain and that the threat of a U.S. BlackBerry shutdown is far from over.

In Europe, the English High Court ruled in favour of RIM Thursday by deciding that all patent claims in InPro Licensing's lawsuit alleging infringement are invalid. InPro, based in Luxemburg, now may seek permission to appeal the decision to the Court of Appeal. A court in Munich invalidated the German version of the same patent late last month.

In North America, RIM scored a key legal victory Wednesday when U.S. patent authorities rejected the last of five contested patents. The decision can be appealed, and has no bearing on Judge Spencer's ruling.

But a real milestone in the U.S. patent battle will take place on Feb. 24, when U.S. District Court Judge James Spencer in Richmond, Virginia will decide if Blackberry sales and service should be shut down in the U.S. because of earlier rulings that determined it had infringed on patents held by U.S. patent holding company NTP Inc. He will also decide how much RIM, the maker of the BlackBerry, should pay NTP Inc. after infringing on its patents.

In a sign of how dependent Blackberry users have become on the wireless handheld email device, the U.S. Justice Department urged Judge Spencer on Wednesday to delay any injunction until the court can figure out how to keep government users from losing their BlackBerry service.

“There are still a number of serious questions to be answered as to how an injunction can be implemented so as to continue BlackBerry service for governmental and other excepted groups,” the department said in a brief filed with a federal district court in Virginia.

The BlackBerry is used by more than 3.2-million people in the U.S., and any potential court-ordered blackout must exempt the government. In a court filing, NTP maintained there were “readily administrable” ways to exclude government and emergency users from a shutdown.

Merrill Lynch analyst Vivek Arya, who has a “buy” rating on RIM stock, said Thursday that a delay in the injunction ruling would be “favourable” for RIM. In a note, he said it was uncertain if the U.S. patent authorities' decision, as well as the Department of Justice and U.S. government support would help RIM avoid an injunction.

“We are inclined to believe RIM would want to avoid a service shutdown, and if shutdown becomes inevitable, that an out of court settlement with NTP could soon follow,” Mr. Arya said. “However, we can not predict the ultimate outcome of this case and this remains a significant risk.”

Shares of Waterloo, Ont.-based RIM fell 47 cents or 0.56 per cent to $83.53 in Toronto and 66 cents (U.S.) or 0.9 per cent to $72.95 in New York. RIM shares climbed 8.7 per cent in Toronto Wednesday as investors bet that RIM may be pulling ahead in the five-year patent legal battles.

Bear Stearns upgraded RIM stock to “peer perform” from “underperform” Thursday, saying that stronger handset upgrade cycle and delays in competitive handset rollouts, as well as new developments in the legal front could potentially result in a favourable outcome or settlement. The analyst also noted that a negative legal outcome is possible.

With files from wires.