“Canadian smartphone-maker BlackBerry Ltd. said Friday it has filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against a company co-founded by television personality Ryan Seacrest over a keyboard accessory designed to work with Apple Inc.’s iPhone,” Judy McKinnon reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“BlackBerry is alleging a keyboard case from startup Typo Products LLC, designed to clip on to phones made by rival Apple, copies the BlackBerry keyboard,” McKinnon reports. “The Typo Keyboard is available for preorder on the company’s website for $99 and shipping is to start this month.”
McKinnon reports, “Mr. Seacrest and co-founder Laurence Hallier invested more than $1 million in the company, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal’s AllThingsD in early December.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ahh, the smell of desperation wafting out of Waterloo in the afternoon!
Related article:
Ryan Seacrest invested $1 million to develop iPhone physical keyboard – December 5, 2013
The dead suing the clueless.
Ha ha ha ha!
You gotta be kidding me. A patent infringement for a keyboard attachment? Oh yeah only RIM/Blackberry coulda thought up a keyboard. They invented keyboards now for portable devices? Smell of desperation indeed.
Depends. Is the keyboard an exact replica of the Blackberry keyboard (they have a case, if they bothered to IP their design) or does it resemble a Blackberry keyboard from a distance?
The keyboard looks similar from a distance. The typo keyboard has the home button built-in and a few other keys.
Actually, it’s about their predictive typing built into their (RIM) keyboard when you type that they are suing about. And yes, they did get a patent in ’12 for it.
Since it relates to a physical keyboard, RIM believes it’s different from Apple’s suggest a word keyboard
Thanks I wasn’t aware of the particulars. Predictive typing sounds like a variation of auto-correct.
Interesting…as if it makes any difference whether the input is from a virtual or physical keyboard. Besides, this patent thing is getting way out of hand. You are supposed to be able to patent something specific, not just an idea. I have no problem with BB protecting the actual manner in which they perform this function – the code. But not the general idea of “predictive typing.”
That’s really stretching it BB. Laughable.
I still think it is hilarious that they named the keyboard and company “Typo”.
Since a typo is a mistake, and best avoided, I think the name is perfect.
And since this is a Bluetooth keyboard, and iOS doesn’t correct spelling when you type with a Bluetooth keyboard, you will actually make more typos with this than you would with your thumbs. Thus the name. It’s accurate and frankly brilliant.
Hey, putting RIM/Blackberry in Waterloo was an inauspicious sign.
They need to make up for revenue losses
Like this device will make the remaining clueless go to iPhones in droves – not likely! If this lawsuit gets any grip, while the lawsuit addressing the blatant rip off that Samsung has done of Apple continues to lag, my case that there is no justice or fairness will once again be substantiated.
Those that can do.
Those that can’t sue.
Truly deluded, Blackberry wrote off $4.4B last quarter, an epic feat given that it exceeds their market cap and they’re worried about this?
Go home Blackberry you’re drunk.
I guess BB is looking to get a percent of sales from each Typo sale. Let’s see – 100% of $0 sales is still 0 last I checked. Good luck/riddance BB.
BlackBerry must believe that their little keyboard is the best thing they have going for them. Yet another reason why this dinosaur ought to go extinct.
I guess if Apple can patent “rounded corners” then BlackBerry can patent the keyboard. 😉
Looks like it is STILL covering the home/finder print sensor button. Are they going to ship this as is?
Well, yes it does cover the Home button… but a quick trip to their FAQs would have given you this as the very first question in the list: “Does the Typo cover the Apple home button?” Yes, however, we have a dedicated button on the lower right corner of the keyboard that is the home button. It works the same as the Apple home button, press once for the home screen, press twice to open applications and hold for Siri.
You can even see the person using the key in their introductory video. Seems to work well.
Next…
Yes, but you can say goodbye to the fingerprint detector.
Pathetic
At least they didn’t patent ’rounded corners’, like our favourite company.
Silly and boring, Wil…
Lawsuit aside, I’m amazed that they think they will recoup a million dollar+ investment from this device.