BlackBerry Limited BB has reportedly filed a fresh lawsuit for alleged patent infringement. The latest litigation process involves Twitter, Inc. TWTR and follows similar such cases against Facebook, Inc. FB and Snap Inc. SNAP.
The suit filed in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles alleges that Twitter has violated six BlackBerry patents, including pioneering features like push notifications, mobile advertising techniques and the capability to silence notifications for a message thread. The Canadian technology firm has further accused Twitter of unlawfully utilizing some of the "functionality enhancing features" that made "BlackBerry's products such a critical and commercial success" to siphon off its customers.
In March 2018, BlackBerry had filed a patent infringement case against Facebook, alleging violations related to certain messaging features, including unread message notifications and messaging in games. It also accused Facebook of breaching its patents pertaining to security, user interface features, battery-efficient status updates, timestamps and the act of tagging family and friends in photographs. This was followed by a similar lawsuit against Snap in the very next month.
Both these cases are still pending in the court as U.S. District Judge George Wu allowed BlackBerry to pursue most of its infringement claims. It remains to be seen whether the case against Twitter is forwarded to the same judge as all the lawsuits are related to each other. Although the company spokesperson has refused to comment on this issue, experts widely believe that legal compensation and monetary damages are likely to be awarded if the charges are found to be true.
Incidentally, the stock has underperformed the industry with an average decline of 28.7% in the past year while the latter fell 6.7%.
BlackBerry exited its smartphone business in 2016, and has since focused mostly on software to manage mobile devices and enterprise mobility management. The company delivers one of the most secure end-to-end mobile enterprise solutions in the market through a broad portfolio of products and services. It offers an end-to-end software and services platform for the Enterprise of Things, which includes computers, vehicles, sensors, equipment and other connected endpoints within the enterprise that communicate with each other to enable smart business processes.
In addition, the company leverages its extensive technology portfolio to extend the best-in-class security and reliability features. These include a unified endpoint management solution that provides comprehensive multiplatform device, application and content management with integrated security and connectivity, embedded systems, enterprise applications and related services. With the rapid growth of connected endpoints, often referred to as Internet of Things, security has become increasingly important to thwart data theft. BlackBerry has created a niche for itself in this domain and seeks to strengthen its position with innovative safety features.
BlackBerry currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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