Facebook Sued by BlackBerry On Patents -- WSJ
March 07 2018 - 3:02AM
Dow Jones News
By David George-Cosh
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (March 7, 2018).
TORONTO -- BlackBerry Ltd. claimed in a lawsuit Tuesday that
Facebook Inc. and its WhatsApp and Instagram units have infringed
its patents and swiped intellectual property from its BlackBerry
Messenger technology.
In its 117-page court filing in U.S. federal court in Los
Angeles, BlackBerry says the defendants "created mobile messaging
applications that co-opt BlackBerry's innovations, 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."
The suit alleges the defendants improperly used BlackBerry's
intellectual property that streamlines notifications to "prevent
users from being inundated," as well as the display of time stamps
on messages and the tagging of friends and family in social-media
photographs.
The suit also claims the defendants co-opted innovation that
allows users to more easily interact while playing mobile
games.
The Canadian company hasn't said how much it wants in financial
compensation from Facebook, but requested a jury trial.
"We have a lot of respect for Facebook and the value they've
placed on messaging capabilities, some of which were invented by
BlackBerry," said Sarah McKinney, BlackBerry's head of corporate
communications. "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."
Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and it bought
WhatsApp, a mobile messaging app, for $19 billion two years later.
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company said it plans to contest
BlackBerry's lawsuit.
"BlackBerry's suit sadly reflects the current state of its
messaging business," Facebook deputy general counsel Paul Grewal
said. "Having abandoned its efforts to innovate, BlackBerry is now
looking to tax the innovation of others. We intend to fight."
BlackBerry's lawsuit comes nearly a year after it was awarded
$815 million in patent royalties by Qualcomm Inc. as the company,
based in Waterloo, Ontario, seeks to pursue more patent deals with
tech companies. In November, BlackBerry announced a deal with
Teletry, a unit of the Marconi Group, to sub- license a range of
the company's patents to global smartphone manufacturers.
BlackBerry's strategy of pursuing patent litigation comes more
than a decade after the company agreed to pay $612.5 million to
settle a long-running dispute with closely held Virginia patent
firm NTP Inc.
The lawsuit threatened to shut down BlackBerry's once-popular
email service at a time when its keyboard-equipped smartphones
suddenly emerged as a cultural phenomenon.
However, the company's fortunes faded after a poorly executed
push against rival products, such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone and
devices powered by Android from Alphabet Inc.'s Google. BlackBerry
announced in 2016 that it was getting out of the smartphone
business, shifting production of its handsets to third-party
manufacturers in Asia, as it refocused its efforts on its
cybersecurity software business.
--Deepa Seetharaman contributed to this article.
Write to David George-Cosh at david.george-cosh@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 07, 2018 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)
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