BlackBerry Sues Nokia Over Patents
Don’t let the headline fool you. BlackBerry has noble motives.
BlackBerry is ordinarily not a vindictive brand. While it possesses thousands of patents, many of which have been implemented in some shape or form by other operating systems and/or device manufacturers, BlackBerry does not normally go after them.
But as a tiger grows old and can’t hunt alone, it moves to using other means to stay alive, similarly, BlackBerry is taking steps to tide itself over the current slump in fortunes, till it regains it’s footing in the retail market.
BlackBerry recently filed a lawsuit against Nokia, demanding royalties on the Finnish company’s mobile network products that use an industry-wide technology standard.
BlackBerry, in their complaint filed in the Federal Court in Wilmington, Delaware, stated that Nokia is infringing on 11 BlackBerry patents related to LTE- and UMTS/UTRAN-compliant products and services. Amongst the Nokia products that are a target of the complaint are Flexi Multiradio base stations, radio network controllers, and Liquid Radio software.
“In the course of developing its ground-breaking mobile communications devices, BlackBerry and its family of companies invented new technologies that cover key features of LTE and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)/UTRAN communications”, wrote BlackBerry lawyers in the complaint. “To take one example, enabling seamless voice services for LTE users posed a critical challenge that BlackBerry was able to address”.
Some of the patents in concern, in this case, were previously owned by former telecommunications giant Nortel Networks Corp.
Nokia had reportedly also tried to acquire these patents, as a part of a failed bid for Nortel’s business back in 2009.
At the time, BlackBerry, as a part of Rockstar Consortium (which also included other tech giants, like Apple, and Microsoft), had bought the patents from Nortel which was at that point in a bankruptcy bid, for USD 4.5 billion.
BlackBerry’s argument here is that the patents cover essential elements of a mobile telecommunications standard known as 3GPP, and it will license the related technology only on fair and equitable terms. Thus, while they do not seek any court order that would block the use of the technology altogether because they understand the importance of the technology to the human race, they do seek that a fair licensing fee is paid to them, and that their patients not be infringed upon.
What is noteworthy is that this suit against Nokia comes in the tow of two others, one against Avaya, and another one against BLU Products.
BlackBerry’s CEO, John Chen had told investors last May that he was in “licensing mode”, and this list of lawsuits that it now is filing against companies is almost a manifestation of the same — the new policy that the company is now seemingly employing to stay afloat.
Amidst this changing direction of the company, Chen has also not shied away from acquisitions, having used acquisitions to add a suite of software products and negotiated licensing agreements, taking full advantage of the thick list of wireless technology patents that the company has developed over the years. The patent licensing fees thus obtained would help the company develop a stream of revenue, with their smartphones sales having spiralled down to almost a zero.
That said, I, amongst many others, am still rooting for BlackBerry — especially with it’s new crop of Android phones. There’s much to be done, BlackBerry, don’t quit on us now!
Originally published at Chip-Monks.
