A day after recording artist Alicia Keys saw her contract as BlackBerry ‘creative director’ expire, the Waterloo-based handset maker has filed a lawsuit against an accessory company cofounded by American Idol host Ryan Seacrest over a patent dispute, WSJ reports.
While the keyboard accessory does resemble that of BlackBerry’s own handsets, it’s certainly an interesting stand to take against a startup company as even BlackBerry’s own smartphones are trending toward touch screen user interfaces and built-in keyboards have all but lost in popularity. Typo Products, LLC, the company in which Seacrest reportedly invested $1 million and is listed as a founder, lists the keyboard accessory as $99 on its website and currently says shipping will begin this month…
For its part, BlackBerry insists the keyboard is too similar to the keyboard equipped on many of its smartphones, according to Steve Zipperstein, BlackBerry’s General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer:
Whether or not it’s patent infringement, few would predict the declining smartphone maker would start out 2014 defending its physical keyboard technology against a pop culture icon such as Ryan Seacrest.
Dismiss the App Store and integrated-Apple services and BlackBerry may have a concern over lost sales, but a $99 keyboard accessory is probably the least of BlackBerry’s concerns.
