If you thought that Blackberry is out of business, then wake up!
Blackberry has unleashed a new patent war, and their intentions are pretty clear: No one can steal things from them.
Be it Facebook or anyone else.
Blackberry Sues Facebook Over Copying BBM Features
In a stunning move which was not expected, Blackberry has sued Facebook for using BBM or Blackberry Messenger features. The 117-page lawsuit was filed in the District Court of Central California.
As per the lawsuit, Facebook has infringed on proprietary and patent-protected features of the messaging product BlackBerry Messenger, and thus, stolen Blackberry’s intellectual properties.
Blackberry has alleged that Facebook is “using a number of the innovative security, user interface, and functionality enhancing features that made BlackBerry’s products such a critical and commercial success in the first place.”
Last year, Blackberry had sued Nokia over intellectual property issue of various 4G related technologies.
In 2016, Blackberry had sold their hardware division to TCL, which is based out of China. TCL has bought the rights to design, manufacture and sell Blackberry branded handsets.
At its peak, Blackberry had around 90 million users (in 2013); but since then, Android and iPhones wiped away their dominance over mobile phone business. They tried few Android phones as well, but it seems that the mojo is lost.
Right now, Blackberry focuses on enterprise software and the Internet of things. And an occasional patent war.
What Were The Features Alleged To Be Stolen?
As per the lawsuit filed by Blackberry, Facebook has stolen several features of the BBM interface, such as:
- Showing an unread message indicator on top of an icon.
- Showing multiple incoming messages in an inbox.
- Selecting a photo tag.
- Not showing timestamps next to every message in a thread.
- Cryptographic techniques to protect user privacy.
- The mixing of mobile gaming and mobile messaging and more.
In their reply, Facebook has denied any such copyright infringement, and have declared to fight the lawsuit.
Here is Facebook’s statement, given by Facebook Deputy General Counsel Paul Grewal:
“Blackberry’s suit sadly reflects the current state of its messaging business. Having abandoned its efforts to innovate, Blackberry is now looking to tax the innovation of others. We intend to fight.”
We will keep you updated as we receive more inputs on this new Patent War.