Tuesday morning, BlackBerry Ltd filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook Inc and its WhatsApp and Instagram apps, stating the social media giant copied technology and features from BlackBerry Messanger.
Below is a list of infringement’s the company is accusing Facebook of copying:
- Patent 7,372,961 covers the concept of generating a cryptographic key by choosing a pseudorandom number and then checking if it is “less than order q prior to reducing mod q.” If it is, the key is used. If not, another key is chosen at random and the process repeats.
- Patent 8,209,634 covers the concept of using icons with numeric badges to signal the arrival of new messages.
- Patent 8,279,173 covers the concept of tagging people in photos using an auto-completing search box.
- Patent 8,301,713 covers the concept of marking a significant lull in a text message conversation by inserting a timestamp reflecting the time of the next message.
- Patent 8,429,236 covers the concept of changing how a mobile device sends messages depending on whether they’re being actively read by the recipient’s device. For example, if updates aren’t being read in real time, then the sending device may be able to conserve power by sending messages in batches rather than one at a time.
- Patent 8,677,250 covers the concept of tying a messaging service and a game application together so that a user playing a game can send messages to contacts on the messaging app that includes updates on the player’s progress in the game.
- Patent 9,349,120 covers the concept of muting a message thread.
While this may come to a surprise to many outside of the tech world, considering BlackBerry ceased manufacturing phones September 28, 2016, the former Canadian cellphone manufacturer has been in active litigation with many other companies regarding the same issues for a few years now. A few of those include notable names like Nokia Corp, Qualcomm Inc, and Blu Products Inc.
Facebook Deputy General Counsel Paul Grewal responded to CNBC regarding the lawsuit with the statement below.
“Blackberry’s suit sadly reflects the current state of its messaging business,” Grewal said. “Having abandoned its efforts to innovate, Blackberry is now looking to tax the innovation of others.”
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