BlackBerry sues Twitter for patent infringement

BlackBerry, the former smartphone maker, is suing Twitter for alleged patent infringement. If this sounds familiar, it may be because BlackBerry filed a patent infringement suit against Facebook last year.

In its complaint, BlackBerry alleges Twitter has infringed and continues to infringe on six of its patents, which cover things like push notifications, silencing notifications for a message thread and mobile advertising techniques.

BlackBerry, which refers to itself as a pioneer in mobile messaging, alleges Twitter “created mobile messaging applications that co-opt BlackBerry’s innovations, using a number of the innovative user interface and functionality enhancing features that made BlackBerry’s products such a critical and commercial success in the first place.”

As noted above, BlackBerry sued Facebook last year, alleging patent infringement. At the time, BlackBerry cited seven patents that relate to security, user interface features, battery-efficient status updates, mobile messaging in games and, similarly to its issue with Twitter, silencing notifications. A few months later, in September, Facebook filed a suit of its own against BlackBerry, alleging the company infringed on five of its patents. Both of those suits are still in litigation.

BlackBerry was once a smartphone giant, but stopped manufacturing its own hardware in 2016. Then, in 2017, BlackBerry revealed the KEYone smartphone, manufactured by TCL, under the company’s new strategy to focus on software.

Both Twitter and BlackBerry declined to comment.