Research in Motion Ltd., the Canadian maker of the BlackBerry wireless e-mail device, said Thursday it has developed software “workaround” designs for its popular handsets in case a court bars the use of current software in a pending patent dispute.

Although there is currently no injunction in place in the patent litigation with NTP Inc., RIM said it developed the workaround software as a contingency to allow BlackBerry service to continue should the court declare an injunction.