BlackBerry CEO John Chen said Thursday that he sees its massive patent portfolio as one of the key elements in its turnaround strategy as it pivots to focus more on its software and enterprise business.
While speaking at the Waterloo Innovation Summit Chen said,
“We have today about 44,000 patents. The good thing about this is that we also have one of the youngest patent portfolios in the entire industry, so monetization of our patents is an important aspect of our turnaround,â€ÂÂÂ
Chen said the challenge is balancing between aggressively safeguarding one’s patents via lawsuits or monetizing them via collaborative licensing agreements.
“If you go too far and become too aggressive, you become a (patent) troll,†said Chen, who said the company was not keen on taking that approach or gaining such a reputation.
“If you want to go about monetizing your patents in a non-aggressive, legal way then it takes time, and in a turnaround time is one of the key commodities you don’t have, so balancing those two is very difficult.â€Â
Chen stressed that the company plans to keep innovating and staying a market leader in secure communications, where the company has tremendous amounts of know-how.
“The fact that a company is financially not doing that well, or that it’s market share is not doing that well, doesn’t mean it can’t innovate,â€Â
