BlackBerry sells patents for $600 million, may spell trouble for rest of smartphone industry
BlackBerry, the ailing smartphone maker, has sold off a bunch of their legacy patents for $600 million to Catapult IP Innovations. Catapult IP Innovations is not a player in the smartphone industry, and is apparently what some consider to be a “patent troll”, which might bring some trouble to the rest of the industry.
BlackBerry patents sold for $600 million
The patents BlackBerry sold relate to mobile devices, messaging and wireless networking. BlackBerry has assured its users that it will not impact customers use of any BlackBerry products, solutions or services, but given the legacy of BlackBerry, they may have a number of patents that can be used against the competition.
Catapult IP Innovations is probably going to use the newly acquired patents to squeeze out some royalty payments from other smartphone makers, which wouldn’t be too surprising since there really isn’t much purpose for a company to spend $600 million on patents that they aren’t going to use themselves.
BlackBerry’s patents has reportedly been used to sue other companies like Facebook and Apple, and we can probably expect to see more of that after the acquisition is approved. If this acquisition passes the regulatory scrutiny process, BlackBerry will receive $450 million in cash, and a promissory note of $150 million. The process could take up to 210 days to complete.
Pokdepinion: After all that patent trolling Apple did on Samsung, I guess it’s time someone returned the favor?
