Research In Motion is a terrific Canadian company with a terrific product, but burdensome legal and intellectual property issues are of such a magnitude that the shares are merely a speculation.

The one-year chart above shows the Nasdaq price (in black) overlaid with the comparative performance of RIMM (in blue). You will see (i) that holding QQQQ (Nasdaq Index) would have been significantly better for your portfolio, and (ii) periodically through the year there were several times of hope, where RIMM was an out-performer.

If you are a gambler, then RIMM may be for you. But, if you trade based on your confidence in management and the business model, then you have to question why you would need to know how a series of trials work out.

This stock will move up and down on the basis of knowledge by insiders and analysts close to the legal issues. Given that you are not one of those, you should not be a player.