Blackberry Engage in Legal Battle with Facebook over App Patents
Remember Blackberry? The ailing company once boasted a
position amongst the leaders of the smartphone market, with their flagship
Blackberry Messaging app (BBM) maintaining a healthy level of popularity with
the youth in particular.
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| Img: Andri Koolme |
The company is not doing so well in the present day, and in
fact went so far as to stop making smartphones altogether back in 2016
following a substantial decline in sales. Now their primary endeavour seems to
be attempting to eke money out of their existing patents, and they’re making
some rather outlandish claims in the process; Blackberry have filed an official
lawsuit against social media behemoth Facebook, claiming that the latter’s own
messaging apps and platforms have copied features from BBM in a direct
violation of patent rights.
So far that sounds pretty bland and straight-forward, until
you look into the features Blackberry are claiming to have ‘innovated’. BBM may
have beaten Facebook to the punch by about 6 years when it comes to messaging
apps and platforms, introducing many features that remain commonplace today,
but claiming intellectual property rights over such simple additions as the
appearance of a dot or similar icon to indicate a new message, or an icon-bases
system to show when a message has been received and subsequently read, seems nothing
short of absurd.
Blackberry nonetheless does claim such rights and further
claims that Facebook have been aware of the ongoing patent rights violation for
years, with attempts at dialogue yielding little success. A spokeswoman for
Blackberry said the company remains open to a partnership with Facebook.
“However, we have a strong claim that Facebook has infringed
on our intellectual property, and after several years of dialogue, we also have
an obligation to our shareholders to pursue appropriate legal remedies.” she
added.
Facebook on the other hand have asserted their intention to
fight what they consider to be a somewhat frivolous lawsuit. Paul Grewal,
deputy general counsel of Facebook, simply stated that Blackberry’s claim “sadly
reflects the current state of its messaging business”.
“Having abandoned its efforts to innovate,” he continued, “Blackberry
is now looking to tax the innovation of others. We intend to fight.”
Sam
is an aspiring novelist with a passion for fantasy and crime thrillers.
Currently working as Editor of Social Songbird, he hopes to one day drop that
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Blackberry Engage in Legal Battle with Facebook over App Patents
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Wednesday, March 07, 2018
Rating:
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Wednesday, March 07, 2018
Rating:
Unknown
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