Posted by tranced
BlackBerry is adding another sad chapter to the downfall of its smartphone business. Today the company announced a sale of its prized patent portfolio for $600 million. The buyer is "Catapult IP Innovations Inc.," a new company BlackBerry describes as "a special purpose vehicle formed to acquire the BlackBerry patent assets."
BlackBerry says the patents are for "mobile devices, messaging and wireless networking." These are going to be the patents surrounding BlackBerry's phones, QWERTY keyboards, and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). BlackBerry most recently weaponized these patents against Facebook Messenger in 2018, which covered ideas like muting a message thread and displaying notifications as a numeric icon badge. BlackBerry—back when it was called RIM—was a veteran of the original smartphone patent wars, though, and went after companies like Handspring and Good Technology in the early 2000s.
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Posted by goldenface
Wow! A giant back in the day. How things have changed.
Posted by Supa_Fly
Indeed how things have changed.
After 17yrs after the beginning of their demise, and what 7yrs after I’m very impressed & surprised this company just 147km away from where I live still managed to find a company that found value in & actually purchased these patents. Wow
Posted by *Jojo*
H m m m . . . I kinda don't believe this. Look just what happened to: Nokia and Motorola? They've announced their closures a decade ago, then went on releasing NEW (mid-range fones) years after. It's just like the nursery rhyme for infants . . . Close-Open.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0Y67PAVoCA
Posted by goldenface
I guess they owned some fundamental and valuable patents. They were the king of messaging back in the day.
Posted by *Jojo*
Blackberry has almost the SAME story/fate as that of - Nokia. Although Nokia LASTED . . . longer.
