Slashdot Mirror
BlackBerry Sues iPhone Keyboard Maker Typo
judgecorp writes "Typo Products, which makes a physical keyboard for the iPhone 5 and 5S is being sued by BlackBerry. The firm — co-founded by media personality Ryan Seacrest — provides an iPhone case which includes a physical keyboard, whose keys are sculpted very like those of a classic BlackBerry phone. 'From the beginning, BlackBerry has always focused on offering an exceptional typing experience that combines a great design with ergonomic excellence. We are flattered by the desire to graft our keyboard onto other smartphones, but we will not tolerate such activity without fair compensation for using our intellectual property and our technological innovations,' said Steve Zipperstein, BlackBerry’s General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer."
their attorney will need to spend his entire opening argument introducing the jury to Blackberry phones.
The name of a smartphone keyboard manufacturer is Typo?
Or is it really Tpyo and their publishers keep "correcting" it?
It's funny, when the Blackberry Curve came out, I remember thinking of how much the keyboard and layout reminded me of my Treo 600...
And now, ~10 years later, Blackberry is suing someone for something they didn't even create... I don't see Handspring/Palm/PalmOne having a tiff about it (but then again, maybe if they sued everyone who came out with something more desirable than their product, they might still be around soaking up others' profits...)
Don't get me wrong. I believe that someone who creates something has a right to profit off of it, without some second-rate hack coming in and stealing the idea out from under them.
But, seriously, the keyboard design? It wasn't original when it was on the Blackberry, and it still isn't original now that Blackberry is going the way of the dodo.
Well for ages, Blackberry owners were raving about the quality of their keyboards, on how easy it was to type on such a small keyboard. Blackberry spent a lot of money and R&D to come up with that style, which also meant a lot of engineers got paid to do such work. Now just because blackberry is unfashionable it doesn't mean that a third party company and just go and steal their ideas. especially after Blackberry put the patent on it.
I know slashdotters have I HATE PATTENTS mind set. But this isn't a software patent which is covered by Copyright law and Patent law, this is a hardware patent, of a physical invention. Where blackberry deserves credit for their design.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.