“A U.S. district court on Wednesday sanctioned television host Ryan Seacrest’s Typo Products LLC for violating an injunction barring it from selling a $99 iPhone case found to have likely infringed on BlackBerry Ltd patents,” Euan Rocha reports for Reuters.
“U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco ordered Typo on Wednesday to pay BlackBerry $860,600 (£567,303) in sanctions, plus attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in connection with Typo’s violation of the injunction,” Rocha reports. “A spokeswoman for Typo in an email said that the ongoing litigation and fine relates to the initial Typo product and does not impact its since redesigned keyboard product.”
“‘It has no impact on the Typo 2 product currently in the marketplace, or our other planned product releases for the tablet,’ the company said in an email, declining to comment any further on the matter,” Rocha reports. “The court, in an order issued on Wednesday, said that Typo had sold nearly 19,000 of the keyboards after the preliminary injunction had been issued.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Fill in the blank: Everyone’s patents get vigorously protected unless they’re named _____ Inc.
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So Blackberry’s earnings are going to double this year .
*Spit take!!!* 🙂
Adding a physical keyboard to an iPhone is stupid anyway. They deserve to be sued if not for violating Blackberry’s patents, but also for making such a dumb ass product. The iPhone has been on the market for almost 8 years. If you still want a physical keyboard, buy a Blackberry. I can’t see how using that stupid Typo case would even be comfortable. It took me about 2 weeks to get fully accustomed to the touchscreen keyboard. I sent and received all of my email on my iPhone until I got used to typing on it. If you start out rejecting using a touchscreen, it’s your fault that you can’t use one.
Believe me, there’s older people who miss mechanical keyboards because of the feedback in their fingers and confidence they feel on writing with tiny keys, but they also want to enjoy the benefits of this tsunami-like iPhone trend. If I had whatsoever dumb ass product sold to even just 19,000 customers, I’d be very pleased.
First off, it’s “there are”, not “there’s”. If they miss the feedback and need confidence, maybe they should sign up for one of those cell phone services that cater to old people. Problem solved. There are no benefits to a mechanical keyboard. They’re ugly and nowhere near as easy to use as a touch screen.
I’m from France. Sorry to misuse your beautiful language. I’ll try to be more accurate.
No excuse. If I spoke French, I would speak it properly.
Had the connection been made through bluetooth, instead of the cable connection port, it would still have functioned as a case with all the advantages but might have avoided this injection. Stupid.
Now why can’t the Apple v Samsung Intellectual Property (IP) infringement cases have turned out as simply and logically as this one? This is how it is done, Judge Lucy Koh !
So this was cheaper to Seacrest than vetting out potentially infringing patents? Especially from a former decent market share smart phone player in a really bad mood these days? Forgive me an unsympathetic chuckle. HEH HAH!