Blackberry Defeats Typo In Court, Typo To Discontinue Sales of Keyboard

New submitter juniorkindergarten writes: Blackberry and Typo have reached a final settlement that effectively ends Typo selling its iPhone keyboard accessory. Blackberry took Typo to court for twice for patent infringement over the copying of Blackberry's keyboard design. Blackberry and Typo first battled it out in court, with Typo losing for copying the Blackberry Q10 keyboard design. Typo redesigned its keyboard, and again Blackberry sued them for patent infringement. The final result is that Typo cannot sell keyboards for screens less than 7.9", but can still sell keyboards for the iPad and iPad air. Exact terms were not disclosed.

Comments

Little Tiny Keyboards

[Mr D from 63]

So, BB has the patent on little keyboards? Who patented little buttons?

Re:Did Blackberry invent the QWERTY keyboard

[gstoddart]

This page gives the best side by side comparison I can find.

it's got a picture of one of the BBs, the patent they filed, and the Typo keyboard.

The '964 patent, entitled "HAND-HELD ELECTRONIC DEVICE WITH A KEYBOARD OPTIMIZED FOR USE WITH THE THUMBS", was granted on December 8, 2009, and among its multiple independent claims, of particular note is independent claim 19 which claims "[a] keyboard for use with a mobile communication device". Claim 19 includes the limitations of "twenty-six letter keys and at least one other key" distributed in three rows, that are symmetrically distributed along the face of the electronic device. Furthermore, claim 19 includes the limitation of:
"five letter keys in the upper row being disposed on each side of the vertical reference, five letter keys in the middle row being disposed on one side of the vertical reference and four letter keys in the middle row being disposed on the other side of the vertical reference, and four letter keys in the lower row being disposed on the one side of the vertical reference line and three letter keys in the lower row being disposed on the other side of the vertical reference line..."

So, the extent to which the keys skew away from being flat for ergonomic reasons seems to be enumerated in the patent.

Now, as to the validity of the patent, I can't say.

But I will agree that specific design details for ergonomics are pretty much exactly copied in the Typo .. so if they said "give me a keyboard just like the BlackBerry", I can see why they'd have settled.

But there are specific things and details in there. And it's at least slightly more specific than a small, black QWERTY keyboard. Down to quite specific curvatures.

Re:Blackberry will be gone soon, patents for sale

[stongef]

Have you seen the Blackberry Passport? It has more business-oriented innovation per square inch than any Apple product I have seen. This is the first time I am considering buying a product from them. I always hated their closed platform, but they responded by making Android apps work on their phones. I have seen their "little keyboard" in action, and it is impressive. It does make you type a lot faster. Someone obviously sat down and engineered this correctly. I would not call them dead yet, they always manage to surprise ...