BlackBerry Drags Facebook To Court Over BBM Messaging Patents

Blackberry, which was once counted, along with Nokia, as a leader in the smartphone industry. However, its supremacy faded with time as a flood of Android and iOS devices arrived in the smartphone market.

Later, Blackberry also shifted to Android but failed to make an impact. Now, it appears the company is looking for different ways to make money off there technology.

The Canadian company has accused Facebook of using their patented technology, that fueled the famous BBM, to build some of the basic features in its messaging apps including WhatsApp And Instagram.

For example, using cryptographic techniques to improve security, UI improvements for mobile devices, combining mobile gaming and messaging, battery efficient status updates for mobile devices,

Blackberry has filed a lawsuit in a California district court to seek monetary damages against the use of their technology. According to the lawsuit, a total of seven patents were infringed in the development of various apps developed by Facebook.

Companies getting sued for patent infringement isn’t a new thing. In 2016, Nokia went after Apple claiming that the Cupertino used 32 of their patents to build different technologies. In fact, it’s not the first time for BlackBerry as well. In the past, they have sought compensation from the smartphone maker BLU. But, the fishing rod has been cast to catch the big fish, Facebook.

“As a cybersecurity and embedded software leader, BlackBerry’s view is that Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp could make great partners in our drive toward a securely connected future, and we continue to hold this door open to them,” a BlackBerry spokesperson said in a statement.

“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.”

Apart from the situation where Facebook has to pay the damages or make next to impossible changes to their apps, it could sign a patent licensing agreement with Blackberry which is already making efforts to improve their revenue by licensing patent portfolio. However, the statement issued by the company doesn’t reflect any intentions like that.

“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,” said Facebook’s general counsel Paul Grewal.

Via ArsTechnica