BlackBerry secured a further victory in its campaign to protect its physical keyboard patents when it reached a patent infringement settlement with Typo Products in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The settlement followed an earlier preliminary injunction obtained by BlackBerry against Typo’s first product.<\/p>\n
Typo Products was a collaborative venture between television presenter Ryan Seacrest and entrepreneur Laurence Hallier. Its first product, Typo 1, was a BlackBerry-style clip-on physical keyboard designed for the iPhone 5 and 5s. After losing the initial infringement suit, Typo launched a successor product \u2014 Typo 2 \u2014 for the iPhone 6, representing it as free of the features that had infringed BlackBerry’s patents. BlackBerry filed a second suit against Typo in February 2015, sceptical of the claimed novelty.<\/p>\n
BlackBerry alleged that Typo 2 continued to infringe proprietary BlackBerry patents relating to design, back-lighting, and typing automation technologies. The extension of keys to the side edges and the vertical spacing between rows \u2014 features closely associated with BlackBerry’s keyboard experience \u2014 were said to have been reproduced. Typo 2 was priced at USD 79 for the iPhone 5 and 5s and at USD 99 for the iPhone 6.<\/p>\n
BlackBerry issued an official statement on June 1, 2015 confirming that a patent infringement settlement had been reached with Typo. Under the agreement, Typo is barred from selling keyboards for smartphone devices with a screen smaller than 7.9 inches. The settlement does not prohibit Typo from selling keyboards for devices with screens larger than 7.9 inches.<\/p>\n
BlackBerry has long distinguished itself on the strength of its physical keyboard experience, making consistent pursuit of such infringement suits a predictable strategic response. The settlement may have preserved that distinctive feature; however, BlackBerry’s market position had been in sustained decline since the introduction of touchscreen smartphones in 2007. The company experienced considerable financial losses in 2014 and saw musician Alicia Keys depart from her role as global creative director.<\/p>\n
This article is for general information and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified attorney before acting on any matter discussed here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This post examines the Blackberry v Typo patent dispute, focusing on the settlement that restricts Typo\u2019s sales of certain smartphone keyboards. The analysis highlights the legal strategies employed to protect Blackberry\u2019s patented keyboard designs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":55,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,14],"tags":[148,16,218,7193,7192,7194],"class_list":["post-25554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intellectual-property","category-patents","tag-blackberry","tag-patent-infringement-2","tag-patent-settlement","tag-smartphone-keyboards","tag-typo","tag-us-district-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25554"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149807,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25554\/revisions\/149807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}