Canadian handset maker, BlackBerry Limited BBRY has finally settled its longstanding legal dispute with Apple Inc.’s AAPL iPhone keyboard designer – Typo.
Last year, BlackBerry had filed a patent lawsuit against Typo for the infringement of its popular keyboard design. The keyboard was available for $99 on Apple’s iPhones 5 and 5S.
Recently, BlackBerry dropped its charges against Typo after reaching a patent infringement agreement with the latter. Following the settlement, Typo has to put a stop to the sale of the keyboard for mobile devices with less than 7.9 inches of screen size.
This is likely to act as a massive blow to the keyboard maker as all iPhones come with a screen size of below 7.9 inches. Meanwhile, Typo is free to provide keyboards to iPads with screens wider than 7.9 inches. In line with this, the company is already offering attachable keyboards for iPads, starting at $189 on its website.
Typo has already invested nearly $1 million in developing the keyboards. Hence, losing this case will certainly hurt the company’s profits. However, we believe that selling the keyboards at a high price was not a smart move by the company as it may have had impacted the company’s market share.
In 2002, BlackBerry had leveled similar charges against PDA-maker Handspring. However, the charges were dropped and the keyboards were licensed.
On the bright side, the legal win will help BlackBerry sideline its competitors by maintaining its dominance in the smartphone keyboard market.
Currently, BlackBerry carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). Better-ranked stocks in the telecom space include China Mobile Limited CHL and NTT DOCOMO, Inc. DCM. Both these stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
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