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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: 4, Insightful) by deimios on Saturday August 06 2016, @04:28PM
The writing has been on the wall for a while now. RIP Blackberry, disinfect the needles less you become another SCO.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday August 06 2016, @05:06PM
EXACTLY what I was just about to comment. RIM is the new SCO.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Saturday August 06 2016, @05:26PM
I think a good difference is that old blackberry products are still useful if you keep within the context of what they are used for.
I just bought one off ebay to replace an older smartphone of mine, and it works fantastically for this purpose.
I get emails, MMS, SMS, IM clients, can make calls, can use it as a hotspot, and it isn't capable enough to display modern ads. I have never seen an advertisement once on it.
Of course, I disabled java script and cookies and turned off the GPS, but that doesn't prevent displaying the old type of punch the money and win a free ipod types of ads that were prevalent of its era. Perhaps because those simple ads are gone now, simpler devices have no ads left to display.
It works fine to get the weather and news... I can read forums like this with no problem. It does everything I would want a modest smartphone to do. For anything else... I have other tools for that.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday August 06 2016, @05:41PM
Yeah, But how is that different than any other obsolete phone? I have an ancient iphone I use only as a Sip handset.
The only thing Blackberry ever had going for them was their encrypted message service, and once they started handing those keys over to every government on earth their only claim to fame was gone.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Saturday August 06 2016, @09:26PM
I don't suppose it's any better -- but it isn't any worse, and it was inexpensive.
I've thought about getting some pretty basic phones that receive SMS and can make calls, but I generally have come to depend on the email availability -- for mostly personal life (work stuff is seperate as needed).
There are $50 devices out there that are not blackberry and are smartphones; I had really wanted to try the last Palms that came out. I have had no intention of giving into the Google singularity, although I occasionally use some outdated tablets to get around on the internet without having signed into anything (and those things try to rat me out anyway via sending all my DNS queries to google servers... had to block that at the network edge. They didn't give the OS out for free because of altruism! I'd run something else on the hardware if it was worth the time to do).
I actually also have an old iPaq I won from Microsoft many years ago, and use it for nethack and some bluetooth stuff -- it has too weak of a processor to do as you stated as you do with your iphone; a sip handset... but it almost was good enough. I could hear but it couldn't encode well...
Instead, since its utility is now pretty limited, I use it to play Nethack, and it can do this really well... When bored, I sometimes dig it out, as I've come to prefer that version than the PC version.
I have tried Nethack on my android tablets, and even bought a stylus that lets me have finer control over the game... but it still seems wonky on Android compared to the ipaq version.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Saturday August 06 2016, @04:55PM
It's a shame that no graceful exit is possible. Blackberry lost the initiative to competitors, and it has been clear for a few year now that the company is dead. It's just too big - like a dinosaur - and the message hasn't reached the brain yet.
So now they are trying to monetize their IP, before all of the patents expire. As usual, this seems to have almost nothing to do with the actual applicability of the IP - instead, it's the usual extortion game: settle, or else we'll cost you millions in legal fees. They can't really sell the IP, because it's not actually worth all that much. But it will keep the executives and lawyers rolling in the dough for another couple of years, and the shareholders can continue to deny reality a bit longer.
It's a shame that there is no way for companies in this situation to exit the world gracefully.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday August 06 2016, @05:08PM
But!?
What about the need for a chicklet QWERTY!
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Saturday August 06 2016, @05:55PM
Apparently those of us who like to type aren't all that far away from laptops and desktops.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday August 06 2016, @05:28PM
Exactly. All we got left is lawyers, let's sic em on those other bastards.
A lot of this reads like other "with a computer" patents. (Seems to me Nortel did most of the telephone over IP work in the latter half of the Pleistocene.) And suing someone for using am encryption standard published by the government. Wow.
I suspect this opens these patents to a great deal of "obviousness" challenges, but even if the defendants win, what will be the cost those companies? Their business is ruined, and Blackberry is still in its death throes. Then the patents get invalidated, but Blackberry never has to give back a single red cent.
We've seen this movie before.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 06 2016, @07:58PM
As if a decade of 'dying' wasn't enough.. they will milk this for another 30 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 06 2016, @11:16PM
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.
"Patent licensing mode", right.
Call it what it is, asshole: you're a patent troll.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 07 2016, @07:20AM
Before becoming litigation dicks, here is a possible unexplored market strategy : go anti-smartphone and make dumb phones that can't spy on you.