BlackBerry on Tuesday filed a patent infringement lawsuit in opposition to Facebook and its WhatsApp and Instagram apps, arguing that they copied expertise and options from BlackBerry Messenger.

Litigation over patent infringement is a part of BlackBerry Chief Government John Chen’s technique for earning money for the corporate, which has misplaced market share within the smartphone promote it as soon as dominated.

“Defendants created cell messaging functions that co-opt BlackBerry’s improvements, utilizing numerous the revolutionary safety, person interface, and performance enhancing options,” Canada-based BlackBerry mentioned in a submitting with a Los Angeles federal courtroom.

“Defending shareholder property and mental property is the job of each CEO,” BlackBerry spokeswoman Sarah McKinney mentioned in an e-mail. Nevertheless, she famous that litigation was “not central to BlackBerry’s technique.”

The lawsuit adopted years of negotiation and BlackBerry has an obligation to shareholders to pursue applicable authorized cures, she added.

Fb Deputy Basic Counsel Paul Grewal mentioned in a press release that the corporate meant to combat the lawsuit.

“Blackberry’s swimsuit sadly displays the present state of its messaging enterprise,” Grewal mentioned. “Having deserted its efforts to innovate, Blackberry is now seeking to tax the innovation of others.”

BlackBerry is making an attempt to steer different corporations to pay licencing royalties to make use of its trove of greater than 40,000 international patents on expertise together with working programs, networking infrastructure, acoustics, messaging, automotive subsystems, cyber-security and wi-fi communications.

BlackBerry can also be promoting cyber-security software program for self-driving automobiles.

BlackBerry sued Nokia Corp in February 2017, alleging infringement of patents referring to 3G and 4G wi-fi communications expertise. That case remains to be pending in federal courtroom in Delaware.

Final yr Qualcomm Inc agreed to pay BlackBerry $940 million (roughly Rs. 6,100 crores) to resolve arbitration over royalty funds.

In October 2017 BlackBerry introduced a confidential settlement with Blu Merchandise, a Florida-based maker of low-cost cell units it had additionally sued for patent infringement.

© Thomson Reuters 2018