Blackberry — which recently celebrated the notable achievement of a zero percent marketshare in the smartphone space — has turned into a patent troll now. In suing Ryan Seacrest’s Typo iPhone Keyboard case (which gives the iPhone a physical QWERTY style keyboard which can be slide onto the screen when necessary) now claims that it is a “deliberate” copy of Blackberry that violates three patents.
Bloomberg reports that Blackberry argued in court Friday that the Typo infringed three patents, with the judge in the case opining that at least two of them seemed valid.
Blackberry said that the Typo Case for the iPhone was an “intentional and deliberate” copy of the BlackBerry keyboard: “The similarities between Typo’s iPhone case and the keyboard for BlackBerry’s Q10 smartphone are unmistakable,” said Blackberry lawyer Kevin Johnson.
It sounds like Judge Orrick is on Blackberry’s side in this dispute. “If the consumer can look at this and say this product is ripping off BlackBerry and knows it’s not a BlackBerry product, how does that make a difference in my analysis?” he said.
According to the Judge, he will be issuing a ruling the stop sales of the Typo case in the United States. So get one while you can.
Source: Bloomberg
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
42 responses to “Patent Troll Blackberry Says Ryan Seacrest’s Typo Keyboard Is “Deliberate Copy””
Typo in title. You accidentally put “BlackBerry” when Apple is what you should have put.
And it’s spelled “BlackBerry” as you said and the title did not. ;)
Calling Blackberry a patent troll is like calling Steve Jobs a philathropist.
Shit, that made me laugh!
Ignorant article. In this case if Blackberry is a Patent Troll then so is Apple! Take a damn a look at the keyboards. Clearly, you havent.
How can a practicing entity be a troll? There’s a difference between a company protecting its IP and a NPE sitting on a patent just to collect royalties. Not every patent lawsuit is filed by a troll. I suggest you become familiar with the term before you use it any more in your reporting.
So Apple nearly sues Samsung out of the US and nobody bats an eye…Blackberry has a legitimate claim on its keyboard and it’s a troll?
This is a great example of a negatively framed Blackberry article jumping on the media hate bandwagon.
Nearly sues Samsung out of the US? You kidding? thats hilarious.. Not even close.. by time they get to court, Samsung is onto another bigger/better.. and the 900million.. thats pocket change.. Way to over exaggerate.
In all fairness, they tried. They tried very hard to halt the sales of Samsung products in the US. That was Apple’s form of competition. Not trying to make a product that was competitive in function, just ask the courts to halt your competitors. Just because they lost doesn’t mean they didn’t aim for that.
There is a difference between protecting existing product IP and simply existing to sue.. Wish people would get that..
One produces a product and is protecting that said product.. that is a valid reason to sue and not a troll..
When all your after is money.. and even the original inventors don’t get a piece of the action, thats a troll. A group of lawyers suing for profits sake.. a leach on the backside of innovation and the market at whole.
You’re absolutely correct and the author of this article clearly doesn’t get that.
So what you’re saying is that Apple is a patent troll?
Seriously ? After being an Apple fan and Mac User for over 20 years, I’m kind of sick to see what the meaning of an Apple fan has become ! I guess now that I’m older and more realistic, I can see value in competitors’ products and accept shortcomings in ones I love.
Calling Blackberry a patent troll when it obviously has a valid argument… compared to Apple wanting to sue anyone making a rectangle with a home button ?? Or rather, suing the rectangle maker that is giving it the most competition !
Kudos. One of the wisest comments I’ve read on the Internet in a long, long, long time.
Blackberry doesn’t own a patent on physical keyboards for phones, but most of the details for this attachment are taken outright from the Blackberry Bold : the silver lines between rows, the white bold font on black keys, the shapes of the keys, etc.
You’re right. BlackBerry’s problem with Typo is that it’s a complete copy-cat of the Q10 keyboard. The frets are the same, the keys are the same, etc. Obviously the author of this ridiculous article is blind.
Wow nice title, how biased and incredibly anti-BlackBerry. The product typo is a carbon copy of the Q10. If you can not see this I am embarrassed for you. I bet you kick puppies too! Pathetic!
Sorry, but this is a blatant copy of the Q10’s keyboard. Whether you like or dislike BlackBerry, it’s a really obvious copy.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=q10+vs+typo&view=detail&id=F267C71EEF4626A32142228AE1E4422B9DD334A9&first=2
Wow. Laughable at best. Perhaps you should Google search Patent Trolls. Patent trolls do not come up with ideas or inventions, they buy others for the sole purpose of suing others. That keyboard is BlackBerry’s Intellectual Property, I spelled it out as I doubt you have used it much with your lack of understanding on the subject.
And then you quoted the CIRP figures, which was discovered to be created by an investor who is obviously protecting his own assets so asked a minute amount of people through social media what phones they bought. If you’d like to read about that, Google search CIRP, UTBblogs. Btw, I wrote those articles and got my information straight from CIRP, and a small amount of research. You should try it. Does wonders for your posts
The title of this site is perfect for you John, you’ve most assuredly been drinking the punch.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=q10+vs+typo&view=detail&id=F267C71EEF4626A32142228AE1E4422B9DD334A9&first=2
As can be seen in that link, the Typo is a blatant copy of the Q10.
John I fear your parakeets wrote this. Please do not let them near your keyboard again.
What an awful article by a troll out to get BlackBerry. It’s also incorrect. BlackBerry does not have a 0pc market share in any country on this earth.
There is nothing correct in this article (if you can call it that) . Blackberries market share in the US is just about 3%. Quoting the less than zero percentage shows that you don’t know what your talking about nor do you care to actually post accurate information. Last quarters sales were less than 1 percent not their market share.
All of the other comments have schooled you on what a patent troll is so I won’t get into that.
It’s just amazing what passes for journalism these days.
BB market share is 0,4% and user base is 3.1% in US. Market share is about sales. On the other side, this article is BS.
Apple is the real patent troll. Apple sues and tries to patent other company’s ideas. This keyboard is a ripoff of the classic BlackBerry keyboard. BlackBerry is right.
I switched from my iPhone to the new BlackBerry Z30 and loving it. Loving the larger screen, over 25 hours battery life, flash compatible browser and no need for apple to TV to connect to my TV.
OK how the fuck is BlackBerry a patent troll? They actually use the keyboard patents that the TYPO infringed upon.
wow, that’s one of the top miss-informative article I’ve read this year.
So, the copycat is the good guy and the stolen one is a troll ?
Just ask apple to make the device with a physical keyboard they claimed outdated and poor (I’m sure you applauded then) and see how they can do it.
P.S: Anyways, typo’s quality is so poor that those who actually tried it for more than 100 words ditched it.
Yep, how many has @kevinmichaluk gone through?
Keyboards suck. Blackberry’s especially. But hey, a rip-off of the BlackBerry keyboard for your iPhone….”get one while you can”.
can you then explain why it’s been rated the best keyboard by every single poll that’s ever been done on keyboards?
Wow, with that attitude; I REALLY want to become an Apple fanboi.That sounds like a blast!
BB a patent troll? LOL tell me how many other cases do they have? how many cases does apple put up over things like- the shapes? – whos the troll? thought so -Failed title and article.
Absolutely right. The author of the article is an incompetent troll.
And in other news… Internet troll John Brownlee writes horrible story about BlackBerry calling the company patent trolls even though he is a supporter of apple, the king of patent trolls. Apparently John Brownlee, also has a hard time differentiating his head from his ass.
Not sure if Parody or Blind Fanboyism
Trolling Cult of Mac article accusing BlackBerry of being a patent troll fires up BlackBerry users.
That’s so meta.
I’d expect nothing less than a trash article from someone who posts pictures of their food on instagram. Articles like this are what make it embarrassing to own Apple products.
The person who wrote this article has 0.5 score of an IQ.. don’t take it too personal man.. They are tech companies that make more money than you.. Relaxx bud.. go take a drink or something.. and it’s a copy actually fair is fair..
Apple tries to sue iFone for making a product that is a homophone of Apple’s product BEFORE Apple even make their product; and somehow BlackBerry is the patent troll?
The Typo company even stated that it was so they could get the feel of their old BB keyboards that they loved so much on their iPhones. This author is an idiot…
Don’t know if brownlee is a troll or what?!
I respect other platforms and their users but that what brownlee is doin is a blind and bad fanboysm.
You can pick on up here istoreworld.com/us/typo-keyboard