BlackBerry sues Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram for patent infringement patent

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Blackberry has filed a lawsuit against Facebook and its WhatsApp and Instagram businesses over an alleged patent infringement. According to Blackberry, Facebook infringes multiple patents of Blackberry Messenger, the company’s chat app.

According to a Blackberry spokesperson, Facebook has infringed Blackberry’s intellectual property because competing apps such as Whatsapp improperly use Blackberry techniques. The spokesperson told Reuters that talks had been going on with Facebook for several years about this, but that Blackberry now has an obligation to its shareholders to take legal action.

The subpoena states that Blackberry considered itself innovative, in the sense that the company has obtained multiple patents in the past on cutting-edge features of its mobile phones, Blackberry Messenger and other communication apps that help keep the smartphones safe. and easy to use. According to Blackberry, it concerns a number of patents related to security, user interface and functionalities that have made Blackberry products a commercial success in the past.

The company specifically mentions cryptographic techniques so that users trusted and started using the messaging feature. Furthermore, according to Blackberry, it concerns interface improvements for mobile devices, such as notification optimizations. With the latter, Blackberry, for example, mentions showing notifications of the number of unread messages in a graphical way by means of a number. Also mentioned is showing timestamps in the chat function, which would be the point that this is done without filling the screen with unnecessary information.

Furthermore, Blackberry mentions, for example, the combination of playing mobile games and sending mobile messages, and showing energy-efficient status updates based on the user’s status on a second device. According to the company, these kinds of functionalities were all invented by Blackberry and are “table stakes” for modern mobile chat apps and social networks. Blackberry also mentions Facebook Messenger, Facebook.com, Whatsapp and Instagram.

Facebook responded, saying the charges “unfortunately reflect the state of Blackberry’s messaging business.” In the statement, which can be read on Mashable, among others, Facebook says that Blackberry has given up its efforts to innovate and that the company is now taxing others by trying to take advantage of its own innovations. Facebook says it will fight the charges.

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