Facebook has been sued by BlackBerry in a Los Angeles Federal Court for infringing on its patents related to messaging technology. The lawsuit has been filed by BlackBerry proper, not TCL, which is the Chinese company that’s now making BlackBerry-branded smartphones. It reportedly targets Facebook and its WhatsApp messaging and Instagram photo-sharing service. The company says that it decided to file this lawsuit after “”several years of dialogue” with Facebook.
“As a cybersecurity and embedded software leader, BlackBerry’s view is that Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp could make great partners in our drive toward a securely connected future, and we continue to hold this door open to them,” Canada-based BlackBerry said.
Not a lot of details about this lawsuit are available right now as the lawsuit hasn’t surfaced online as yet but it should in the very near future and that’s going to bring more details about the grounds that BlackBerry is relying on in its patent infringement claim against Facebook.
While the lawsuit hasn’t surfaced in online court records, it’s likely that BlackBerry has sued Facebook over patents that it owns on BlackBerry Messenger. BBM was a much loved instant messaging service among BlackBerry users, it enabled them to send and receive messages without using standard messaging rates. It also offered other features such as delivery and read reports.
Update: Facebook has sent out the following statement: “Blackberry’s suit sadly reflects the current state of its messaging business. Having abandoned its efforts to innovate, Blackberry is now looking to tax the innovation of others. We intend to fight,” said Paul Grewal, Facebook’s deputy general counsel.
Filed in . Read more about BlackBerry and Facebook. Source: reuters