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BlackBerry Awarded $815 Million in Arbitration Case Against Qualcomm (cnbc.com)
BlackBerry, the former smartphone maker, was awarded $814.9m in an arbitration decision against Qualcomm over a dispute relating to royalty payments. The two companies entered into arbitration talks in February about Qualcomm's "agreement to cap certain royalties applied to payments made by BlackBerry under a license agreement between the parties," BlackBerry said in a statement. From a report: BlackBerry argued that it was overpaying Qualcomm in royalty payments. Last April, BlackBerry and Qualcomm entered discussions to settle the dispute and analyze an existing "agreement to cap certain royalties applied to payments made by BlackBerry under a license agreement between the two parties." Despite the dispute, BlackBerry CEO John Chen said Wednesday that the companies "continue to be valued technology partners." He said BlackBerry will continue to collaborate with Qualcomm, specifically for security in the auto industry and in application-specific integrated circuits.
It was not 'an IP lawsuit', it was a suit about overpayments.
I don't disagree with those suspicions on BB's future revenue sources; but this particular spat involves BB trying to reduce they amount they were paying Qualcomm, so while the favorable judgement means they get a payment now, the net flow of money is from BB to Qualcomm, just with a dispute about how large it should be. It is conveivable that they could 'patent troll' while still paying the other guy(if, say, they used some combination of threats to get Qualcomm parts well below the usual price; but still had to pay something for them); but unless this royalty adjustment is astonishingly good, it seems more like an attempt to beat back Qualcomm's own...enthusiastic...deployment of IP claims.
Now, since BB barely sells actual products anymore; this big exciting payout is likely to be hard to repeat; and then they'll come out trolling; but this specific case against Qualcomm looks like part of the general industry backlash against the exciting business of cellular modem patents. Qualcomm has had some antitrust trouble in multiple venues, is in court with several customers, and generally seems to have made themselves unpopular of late.
its nice to see them on the + side for once :)