BlackBerry Enters New Phase Of Patent Monetization, Sues Internet Telephony Firm Avaya (arstechnica.com)

In what can be seen as a turning point for BlackBerry, the Canadian iconic company has filed a patent lawsuit against internet telephony firm Avaya. BlackBerry claims Avaya has infringed eight of its U.S. patents, and that BlackBerry should be paid for its history of innovation going back nearly 20 years. "BlackBerry revolutionized the mobile industry," the company's lawyers said. "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." From an article on Iam Media: The move comes just over a year since Blackberry announced itself as a major player in the monetisation space with an agreement signed with Cisco, in which the Canadian company not only secured a cross-licensing deal but also "a license fee from Cisco." Another royalty-bearing deal was done with an unnamed company around the same time. Since then, the company has also signed two more deals with Canon and International Game Technology, both of which look to contain a royalties element to them; while in January it emerged that late last year Blackberry had sold a portfolio of patents to investment firm Centerbridge Partners for as much as $50 million. Blackberry CEO John Chen has made clear that he sees the company's patent assets as a key element in his plans. "We have today about 44,000 patents. The good thing about this is that we also have one of the youngest patent portfolios in the entire industry, so monetization of our patents is an important aspect of our turnaround," he told delegates at a summit in Waterloo, Ontario, last September. He was at it again in May during an earnings call with analysts when he stated: "Many people have wanted to buy the patents... But I'm not really in a patent-selling mode, I'm in a patent licensing mode."

Comments

RIP Blackberry...

[__aaclcg7560]

The iconic Blackberry has now become a patent troll. Sad.

Re:RIP Blackberry...

[MightyMartian]

Well, what else were they going to do? The investors allowed Chen to play a sort of bizarre version of fantasy football, except with a real business, instead of just demanding they're money and going home. Now, the company has wasted billions, sold off many of its assets, laid off a large percentage of its R&D staff, and is likely within a couple of years of total financial dissolution. All that's left is to try to keep the ship afloat by strategic lawsuits. Soon, once those don't bring the bottom line up, they'll just start madly flailing about, suing big players in the hopes that some of the big fish just buy them off, or buy them outright.

Blackberry stopped being relevant five years ago. The fact that it even still exists demonstrates the utter stupidity of investors.

Re:RIP Blackberry...

[__aaclcg7560]

They're a real company, with real patents, and sued someone in their industry who is infringing. Why is that a troll? How is that not just proper use of the patent system?

Real companies have real products. Patent trolls have a portfolio of patents and little else.

Re:RIP Blackberry...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

They're a real company, with real patents, and sued someone in their industry who is infringing. Why is that a troll? How is that not just proper use of the patent system?

One of the signs of impending death of a tech company is a spate of patent suits. This happens after they are no longer competitive and are trying to milk every source of revenue possible, in order to keep from going under. Out come all the patents - including the "obvious" ones - which they'd never bothered to attempt to enforce before (and thus never had them knocked down). Suits are filed against any company doing anything in the related field, even if it's not really covered by one of their patents, and it's up to those they sue to do the research to show the suit is bogus.

A stage before that is when management sacrifices the company's future to its current bottom line, by cutting R&D expenses - and thus ending inventions and development of new products. This is typically done in order to line their own pockets by making the stock price jump and their options worth a bundle. Then they cash out and the house of cards collapses on their successors' watch. If their successors can't turn it around you get the scenario above.

Before that they were competitive because they were still, or had recently, built new stuff that was ahead of the competition. This is where patent suits are appropriate - to keep people from just cloning their work without incurring the expense. But it's also where they're rare, because the company does better (or just did better) by running ahead of the pack, rather than by spending effort tripping the competitors.

Lol

[phishybongwaters]

Well considering Avaya developed a bunch of their technology in house, owning the patents, and then bought up a huge share of Nortels IP, I'm not sure blackberry has a leg to stand on here, considering they at no point entered the same market that Avaya and Cisco currently operate in. This is 100% related to BBs relationship with Cisco, who loves to live on the edge of patent infringement, going so far as to name their Voip system indentically to Avaya's This is why patents are mostly bullshit and used to stifle innovation and competition. IMO if you aren't actively exploiting the patents you have, you have no right to sue someone who is.

in other words...

[Nidi62]

"We have today about 44,000 patents. The good thing about this is that we also have one of the youngest patent portfolios in the entire industry, so monetization of our patents is an important aspect of our turnaround," he told delegates at a summit in Waterloo, Ontario, last September. He was at it again in May during an earnings call with analysts when he stated: "Many people have wanted to buy the patents... But I'm not really in a patent-selling mode, I'm in a patent licensing mode."

Translation: Our company is essentially dead in the water with no capability or desire to continue production and innovation, so instead we are going to start seeking rents for cash flow and cutting staff to increase stock price.