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BlackBerry sues Snap in latest case of messaging-related patent trolling
Snap Inc. is the latest company set to face the ghost of Christmas past in a court of law after BlackBerry Ltd. sued the millennial messaging service for patent infringement in its mobile app.
Building on its lawsuit against Facebook Inc. last month, BlackBerry is accusing Snap of infringing on its patented messaging technology, specifically six patents issued between 2012 and 2014. Those patents are said to cover “innovations on real-time activity location for maps, message notification techniques and methods for integrating advertising on mobile devices.”
BlackBerry said in a statement that it has “a well-earned reputation for protecting and securing our customers’ data and privacy” and that “for more than a year we have been working to establish a dialogue with Snap as we believe there are far more opportunities for partnership than disagreement. While we continue to hold this door open,” BlackBerry added, “we also have a strong claim that Snap infringed on our intellectual property, harmed our shareholders, and we have an obligation to pursue appropriate legal remedies.”
Two of the six patents BlackBerry is suing Snap over are the very same patents on which they’re suing Facebook. In that case, BlackBerry accused Facebook creating “mobile messaging applications that co-opt BlackBerry’s innovations, using a number of the innovative security, user interface, and functionality enhancing features that made BlackBerry’s products such a critical and commercial success in the first place.”
Suggesting that BlackBerry is not much more than a patent troll in 2018, Bloomberg reported that BlackBerry Chief Executive Officer John Chen has been working to find additional sources of revenue as investors express concern over growth rates at the company’s core security-focused software business. Further, the report noted that as a consequence, that has sent the company hunting through its library of wireless tech and messaging patents to find opportunities for more licensing deals and lawsuits.
Snap shares dropped 2.6 percent on the news Tuesday, but the decline was not out of trend given the stock has been on a downward slide since layoffs were announced in March.
Photo: Enrique Dans/Wikimedia Commons
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