Back in August of 2016, BlackBerry filed two patent lawsuits in the United States against BLU Products. Both companies announced today they have entered into a patent license agreement that will result in settlement of all existing patent litigation between the two companies and withdrawal of pending actions in the United States.
The agreement will include on-going payments from BLU to BlackBerry with additional terms of the agreement remaining confidential.
Filed on August 16, 2016 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, BlackBerry claimed BLU infringed fifteen of its U.S. patents.
Jerald Gnuschke, senior director of Intellectual Property Licensing, BlackBerry said,
“We are very pleased to have reached this patent license agreement with BLU Products,”
“The consummation of this agreement enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market.”
The complaint stated that BlackBerry offered BLU a patent license in a letter dated November 21, 2015 and a follow up letter December 8, 2015, but the company failed to respond.
The first case alleged seven patents relating to battery, API, messaging, and imaging technologies, while the second case alleged eight patents, which are Standards Essential Patents (SEPs) and were declared to the standards setting organizations (SSOs) when the various working groups were developing new technologies.
Gnuschke added,
“The settlement will allow Blackberry “to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market,”
