BlackBerry suing Nokia is 2017 is a bit like the secret Rocky/Apollo Creed fight in Rocky III revealed in 2015’s Creed – two once mighty champions doing battle one more time, with a heck of lot fewer people looking on. Also, there are a couple of series reboots in the works.
A lot has changed since the once mighty phone makers glory days. These days both have moved away from making their own handsets, licensing their names to third-parties looking to capitalize on any cachet left in the brand. One thing that never gets old, though, is patent suits – and while neither company may be all in on mobile the way they once were, there’s still plenty to sue about.
In a suit by BlackBerry filed on Valentine’s Day with a federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, the Canadian company alleges Nokia of infringing on 11 patents, across a wide range of mobile networking products.
From the suit,
Nokia encourages and instructs customers, mobile service providers such as T-Mobile and AT&T, to purchase, deploy and use infringing products to develop and operate their LTE networks and UMTS networks.
The suit doesn’t go so far as seeking to block use of its patents, instead looking to collect on damages related to the royalty fees it charges for licenses on the technologies – some of which were acquired through purchase from Nortel, after that company went bankrupt.
According to BlackBerry’s filing, Nokia attempted to buy them directly from Nortel a few years prior. BlackBerry has declined to comment further on the suit.