BlackBerry has filed a patent lawsuit (PDF) against Internet telephony firm Avaya. The dispute marks a turning point for Blackberry, which pushed into the Android market last year but has been struggling.
In making its case that Avaya should pay royalties, BlackBerry's focus is squarely on its rear-view mirror. The firm argues that it should be paid for its history of innovation going back nearly 20 years.
"BlackBerry revolutionized the mobile industry," the company's lawyers wrote in their complaint. "BlackBerry... has invented a broad array of new technologies that cover everything from enhanced security and cryptographic techniques, to mobile device user interfaces, to communication servers, and many other areas."
Out of a vast portfolio, BlackBerry claims Avaya infringes eight US Patents:
The patents have various original filing dates, ranging from 2011 back to 1998.
Accused products include Avaya's video conferencing systems, Avaya Communicator for iPad, a product that connects mobile users to IP Office systems, and various IP desk phones. The '961 cryptography patent is allegedly infringed by a whole series of products that "include OpenSSL and Open SSL elliptic curve cryptography," including the Avaya CMS and conferencing systems.
[...] A patent cross-license that BlackBerry executed last year involved Cisco paying a "license fee," although the amount was confidential. In May, BlackBerry CEO John Chen told investors on an earnings call that he was in "patent licensing mode," eager to monetize his company's 38,000 patents.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday August 07 2016, @12:45PM
They can't really sell the IP, because it's not actually worth all that much.
Some of it is actually worth nothing. For example the '961 patent mentioned above is completely bogus, they just took someone else's work from years earlier and patented it. The USPTO followed their usual rigorous standard of examination ("your check's cleared, here's your patent"), however getting it overturned would still probably be more expensive than just licensing it. Or at least RIM can drop their licensing cost to where it's cheaper to license it than to get it struck down.