RIM tries to patent what Opera has been doing for years with Opera Mini

Research in Motion (RIM) filed a patent in September 2009 titled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ENHANCING NETWORK BROWSING SPEED BY SETTING A PROXY SERVER ON A HANDHELD DEVICE”. It works like this: you take your BlackBerry out of your pocket, open up the browser, type in intomobile.com, your device sends your packet requests to RIM’s BIS server, on RIM’s end there is some compression done to the website, and then it’s finally transmitted down to your handset. Sound familiar? Opera has been doing the exact same thing since August 2005 with Opera Mini. In Opera’s latest “State of the Mobile Web Report” the most popular device using Opera Mini in North America was the BlackBerry 8330, and out of the top 10 most popular devices using Opera Mini, 6 of them were BlackBerrys. Why is RIM trying to patent something that the Norwegians have not only been doing well for several years now, but is already popular with BlackBerry users in the United States today?