BlackBerry Sues iPhone Keyboard Maker Typo 226
judgecorp writes "Typo Products, which makes a physical keyboard for the iPhone 5 and 5S is being sued by BlackBerry. The firm — co-founded by media personality Ryan Seacrest — provides an iPhone case which includes a physical keyboard, whose keys are sculpted very like those of a classic BlackBerry phone. 'From the beginning, BlackBerry has always focused on offering an exceptional typing experience that combines a great design with ergonomic excellence. We are flattered by the desire to graft our keyboard onto other smartphones, but we will not tolerate such activity without fair compensation for using our intellectual property and our technological innovations,' said Steve Zipperstein, BlackBerry’s General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer."
All I can say to that is... (Score:3, Funny)
who?
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Blackberry used to be a maker of devices that at first were glorified pagers, then started becoming phones. They had a good reputation for security, but BIS was demanded to be backdoored by India, and BES, well, just got shoved to the side by Exchange and SSL/TLS connections and Windows Mobile, then subsequently, iOS/Android devices.
Re:All I can say to that is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently he's a celebrity. Wikipedia says he's a radio personality and hosts a show called American Idol.
I had to look it up too.
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Apparently he's a celebrity. Wikipedia says he's a radio personality and hosts a show called American Idol.
I had to look it up too.
Steve Zipperstein?
I thought he was a jewish porn star.
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Probably. It says he hosts "On Air with Ryan Seacrest, a popular morning radio show on KIIS-FM."
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Apparently he's a celebrity. Wikipedia says he's a radio personality and hosts a show called American Idol.
I had to look it up too.
That is some world-class hipsterism, right there. I tip my hat to you.
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Re:All I can say to that is... (Score:4, Funny)
My xbox controller has a keyboard.. Maybe Blackberry invented that too!
Unlikely, your Xbox controller has rounded edges, and therefore was invented by Apple.
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Re:All I can say to that is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well for ages, Blackberry owners were raving about the quality of their keyboards, on how easy it was to type on such a small keyboard. Blackberry spent a lot of money and R&D to come up with that style, which also meant a lot of engineers got paid to do such work. Now just because blackberry is unfashionable it doesn't mean that a third party company and just go and steal their ideas. especially after Blackberry put the patent on it.
I know slashdotters have I HATE PATTENTS mind set. But this isn't a software patent which is covered by Copyright law and Patent law, this is a hardware patent, of a physical invention. Where blackberry deserves credit for their design.
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this is a hardware patent, of a physical invention. Where blackberry deserves credit for their design
I would say that you are prejudging. The extent to which the look and feel of a keyboard can be protected by patent must be established by the courts. By the way, note: six keys on the bottom versus four.
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Spending a bunch of money on R&D does not magically make something non-obvious. I'm not saying a court will necessarily determine that Blackberry's "invention" was obvious (because this seems to happen pretty rarely), but I am saying that I think that the concept is obvious, even if the specific implementation is not.
Yes I think it's important to do research to figure out how big the keys on a keyboard of size X need to be. I also think it's important that a hammer has a handle of the right diameter.
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It only obvious because you have seen it in action...
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Actually I haven't seen it in action. I've never used a blackberry or even seen a person using one up close
Yet I am confident enough to comment on whether this thing I have never seen contains any new inventions or not. Because I just know..
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You know what else is a "hardware" patent? Rounded corners.
Design patent, actually.
Do those things actually sell? (Score:2)
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it's way better for longer inputs.. 'cause you can see what you type and go by feel.
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it's way better for longer inputs.. 'cause you can see what you type and go by feel.
That would explain why I didn't think much of it - I didn't use it for nearly long enough to be able to type by feel.
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Re:Do those things actually sell? (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to be like that as well (although never liked the BlackBerry keyboards). Swype on Android changed my mind in a big way.
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I have to second this ... I can type faster with Swype on a touch screen than I can with the key-press on the virtual keyboard.
Obviously, nowhere near as fast as I can with a full-sized keyboard, but the spell out the word in a continuous motion works really well for me.
My mother in law can't do it, because she finds she has to think about the key locations (she touch types, but doesn't consciously know where the keys are). For me, I think it's a pretty nice wa
Re:Do those things actually sell? (Score:4, Informative)
I used to be like that as well (although never liked the BlackBerry keyboards). Swype on Android changed my mind in a big way.
Exact opposite for me. I tried "swyping" for about 30 seconds before purging it from my phone with extreme prejudice. Regular QWERTY on a touchscreen is bad enough. I really want my H/W keyboard back.
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Your loss. 30 Seconds isn't enough. Heck a full day isn't enough. I used swype for a week and was hooked. Micro Keyboards were barely functional for me, and now, I can't even stand not having swype. I picked up an iPad and instinctively tried to swype and was horrified to go back to hunt n peck typing.
"A keyboard ... how quaint!"
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30 seconds is not long enough. I gave it a few days of feeling a bit awkward before it became natural. Now you can pry it from my cold dead thumb.
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I used to be like that as well (although never liked the BlackBerry keyboards). Swype on Android changed my mind in a big way.
I use swype as well. Far superior to normal onscreen keyboards. I still would prefer a physical keyboard. That Tactus keyboard [tactustechnology.com] that put out some prototype videos last July looks like a good solution. I don't see a single product featuring Tactus yet, though. Seems like it's been long enough that they should be in full swing if they were going to be.
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Try Swiftkey. The swype function is way better than the original.
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Ditto. I think I may be the last remaining blackberry fan, and I just got a Nexus 5. I was sure I would be suffering without the blackberry keyboard (I had a torch before), but SwiftKey is amazingly good. I prefer it greatly to blackberry keyboards now-- I can type 1 or 2 handed equally well, and can very nearly do it by touch.
Plus, when you have voice input as good as android does, the keyboard just isnt that big a deal anymore.
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you sound, like you never used t9.
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you sound, like you never used t9.
The funniest T9 autocorrect was typing "onsite", it came up with "morgue". Imaging telling your boss "I'm morgue."
It took some adjusting but I do like Swype / Google Keyboard's equivalent. I do dread going to my iPod's hunt and peck keyboard.
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I like that when I'm driving alone. Otherwise, I prefer the privacy that comes with swyping/typing.
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I can with a quick initial glance at the screen. My fingers are pretty used to the distance and location between letters.
That said, I need to look at a physical keyboard too before I start my two finger typing :)
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The issue with Apple is that you don't have the choice of software keyboard.
A physical keyboard isn't as interesting in Android, where you can Swype or Swift, or whatever.
Re:Do those things actually sell? (Score:5, Insightful)
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For some tasks, there's no substitute for a physical keyboard, if there were, we'd have have switched to them on computers everywhere.
But that's not my point. My point is that on Android, where you can pick and choose between numerous on-screen keyboards, the option of a physical micro-keyboard isn't as big of a deal as it is on Apple, where you have exactly one system keyboard.
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It took me a long time to finally upgrade from a slider phone with a physical keyboard to one without. The physical keyboard gives tactile feedback and is much less sensitive to fat-fingered typing than any on-screen keyboard I've used... both of which make typing considerably faster. I would have gotten another slider phone, but they don't seem to make them anymore except for a few very low-end models.
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The thing that pushed me to finally ditch my old slider for a new touch-only is the improved voice-to-text. It does a surprisingly good job and is more than sufficient for texting and short emails, my two main tasks. The only thing I find sorely lacking is when I RDP from my phone. The physical keyboard's arrow keys were a huge plus when navigating a larger resolution RDP connection from the much smaller phone resolution.
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Typo? (Score:5, Funny)
Also, Ryan Seacrest [typokeyboards.com] is a founder of the company.
Re:Typo? (Score:5, Funny)
The name of a smartphone keyboard manufacturer is Typo?
Or is it really Tpyo and their publishers keep "correcting" it?
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Re:Typo? (Score:5, Funny)
-It was the keyboard! It's a typo!
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i don't think any case can turn iphone into what ngage really was: the cheapest smartphone on the market. ..only reason if it lost money was the stupid expensive marketing drive(it was just 3650 in different case + extra ram - camera).
If the case goes to trial... (Score:5, Funny)
Why? (Score:3)
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No way you used a blackberry keyboard. I have fat fingers and can type many times faster on the blackberry keyboard than on any other smartphone keyboard, be that physical or touch screen. _The_ best thing about blackberries is the keyboard. Although I have to say the new blackberry OS is pretty good, too. Shame it's too late.
I agree with the GP. The keyboard on the blackberry is terrible. You must not really have fat fingers or you know some secret that we do not. I can barely type on the blackberry. Give me a touchscreen with a good autocorrect or Swype and I can type pretty fast on a smart phone. I have turned down a work phone on more than one occasion to avoid the Blackberry. Thankfully most companies don't use them anymore.
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The keyboard on a Blackberry is a fucking joke, made for people with tiny fingertip
You're supposed to type with your dick.
That's funny, coming from a RIM licker.
Obviousness (Score:4, Insightful)
They shamelessly copied the look of the BlackBerry keyboard. So what. The design of a QWERTY keyboard isn't an original work of authorship, nor is it nonobvious, nor are QWERTY keyboards associated with BB in the minds of members of the public.. No copyright, no patent, no trademark.
Case dismissed.
BB should buy the thing if it has any money left.
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Not so quick... The design of the BB keyboard is original. If you have ever held one in your hand you would see what I mean. There is a slight pitch and the keys are angled a certain way. I am no fan of BB keyboards, but I can see the attraction by some. This is a blatant copy, and does deserve to be sued. For example this is like Samsung and its phones. They are blatant copies. In contrast look at the Sony Xperia's, or the Nokia's and you see original design.
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1. Patent all the possible angles of key tilt and pitch on QWERTY keyboards.
2. Demand $3000 from each owner of a QWERTY keyboard, just less than the cost of a bare-bones legal defense.
3. Profit!!
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1. Patent all the possible angles of key tilt and pitch on QWERTY keyboards.
Why bother patenting all those permutations? Your process can be simplified into the following:
1. Patent evenly spaced sequences of rounded cubes.
2. Sue everybody.
3. Profit!!
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4. Get patent thrown out in court
5. Get sued for damages and legal costs.
6. Bankrupt.
This! (Score:2)
BB has failed, and instead of trying to salvage anything they seem to be turning into the new patent troll company. Anyone else remember SCO? Hint: jump while you still can.
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The design of the BB keyboard is original. If you have ever held one in your hand you would see what I mean. There is a slight pitch and the keys are angled a certain way.
The optimal pitch and angle of the keys can be easily found using a structured search. Anyone who performs such a search will arrive at the same outcome, simply because it is structured. Hence, no patent should have been awarded to this particular design.
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A structured key pitch and angle search wouldn't have resulted in Blackberry's keyboard.
The (marginally) non-obvious innovation here was the realization that people type on mobile devices differently than on a full keyboard. If you hold a mobile device like the original Blackberry with two hands, you notice the base of the thumbs are towards the lower end of the device (closer to the body). Consequently, the thumbs p
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are you saying adding pitches and angels to an establish design makes it unique and therefore patentable?
That's an interesting way to view patents.
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Re:Obviousness (Score:5, Informative)
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And, the patent has already been successfully licensed to Palm (who at the time was much bigger than a celebrity startup), a strong indicator that others believe it to have some validity.
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BlackBerry has been sued (and lost) many times over obvious shit. This is just the nature of the game.
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-1, irrelevant rant.
Blackberry does not claim the QWERTY layout, so a rant about how they don't own the QWERTY layout is pointless.
If you can't innovate, litigate... (Score:3, Insightful)
Blackberry is dying. If their only move is to sue people trying to imitate their "exceptional typing experience," then the death knell isn't far away...
Re:If you can't innovate, litigate... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Blackberry (I preferred when they were called RIM, and every few months there was a story about RIM jobs being lost.) has begun their long descent into patent trolldom.
Please die soon.
New joke? (Score:2)
So, does this mean that Slashdot's resident patent critics will now now stop poking fun at companies who patent rounded rectangles and upgrade to three dimensional patent joking by making fun of companies who sue other companies over regularly spaced sequences of rounded boxes? I for one would welcome a change. That rounded rectangles joke is getting so old it has grown a long white beard , plus 3D patent joking is just way cooler that 2D patent jokes.
New Business Plan? (Score:3)
Litigation.
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Patent? (Score:4, Insightful)
The article doesn't clarify if BlackBerry patented the keyboard layout and set up, and whether the patent is still in effect.
If so, they are well within their rights to enforce it. Typo Products can probably work out a deal with them, et tutti contenti.
If the patent has expired, or if it was never granted/never filed... suck it, BlackBerry. You should know better.
Cheers!
Hmm, that reminds me of something... (Score:5, Informative)
It's funny, when the Blackberry Curve came out, I remember thinking of how much the keyboard and layout reminded me of my Treo 600...
And now, ~10 years later, Blackberry is suing someone for something they didn't even create... I don't see Handspring/Palm/PalmOne having a tiff about it (but then again, maybe if they sued everyone who came out with something more desirable than their product, they might still be around soaking up others' profits...)
Don't get me wrong. I believe that someone who creates something has a right to profit off of it, without some second-rate hack coming in and stealing the idea out from under them.
But, seriously, the keyboard design? It wasn't original when it was on the Blackberry, and it still isn't original now that Blackberry is going the way of the dodo.
Re:Hmm, that reminds me of something... (Score:5, Insightful)
They keyboard IS something special, and IS subject to a patent. Is blackberry going to rise from the dead? no. Are they entitled to control the use of their design? I think so. The Typo is clearly a "distinctly blackberry keyboard for your iphone" which isn't really "fair"
I own the letter A-Pay up (Score:2)
As it is, the shape of the keyboard is not the same, the BlackBerry is kind of the bottom half of an ellipsoid, the Typo goes to the edge of the iPhone, so is the bottom part of a rounded edge rectangle.
Many of the keys do not even have the same function outside the qwerty So the only thing that is ismilar is that dropped corner. Is it patented?
I suspect as in so many things, personal support for RIM's cas
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I have a BlackBerry Bold (given to me by my work). I compared the keyboard on that vs the Typo one to see which keys had the same functionality. Ignoring the obvious QWERTY similarities (which would be true of pretty much any mobile keyboard), the first row had 8 keys exactly the same and 2 different. The second row had all 10 keys the same. The third row was 7 same and 3 different. And the last row was 2.5 the same and 4.5 different. (The "half" coming from a Bluetooth function on the Typo that isn't
Prior to this article... (Score:2)
Freud ... (Score:2)
read Blackberry [User] Sues iPhone Keyboard Maker [for] Typo
Tech company main sequence (Score:4, Interesting)
Tech company main sequence: start as a brightly shining innovator, make too much money, get mired in politics, run out of ideas, run out of money, collapse into a dark, trollish corporate remnant. Blackberry has officially become the latest troll star.
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You're delusional. The BB10 UI was nearly universally praised. For multitasking, it's still unmatched. Its gesture suite, unlike iOS, is simple and intuitive.
It hides almost all functionally off the screen, under buttons in menus and side screens
WTF are you talking about?
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
As for hiding under buttons and menu's, go into the Hub and press delete without opening a menu, when you can't do that, try to forward a message without going into a menu. If you, as a company, push new mobile innovation, make sure it's amazing and well laid out. BB10 has the chance to become ergonomic and usable but it's going to take a large UI redesign, in the way a user interfaces to the platform, that is what they badly messed up and that is what needs a massive overhaul.
I know approx, 7 people who raved about Blackberry, were very excited about BB10, were expecting to pick up the Z10 and Q10 and support the company. 6 of them, including my father, hate the Q10 and Z10 so much that they have now cursed the death of Blackberry. My dad's own words, "Fuck this horrible piece of shit, did anyone at the Blackberry even given a second though to the interface!" If you like the phones the cool but I personally, and many I know, hate them. I've heard the platform cursed about 10:1, as in for every 10 people who hate it, 1 likes it.
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You know what's the worst "innovation" in mobile technology? The keyboard on iOS 7. Where the keys don't change when you are typing caps vs lower case.
That would be exactly the same then as any existing keyboard on any typewrite or computer. Changing the display of the keys would be just irritating. And obviously when it counts (symbols, numbers etc. ) the display does change.
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It is all about how the keys look, not that it is a keyboard. The beveling on the keys are made to make it easier to type with your thumbs. I see the novelty in it, but am not sure it should be patentable. Look for yourself:
http://typokeyboards.com/
http://www.dogtownmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/blackberry-mobile-acquired.jpg
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Im kind of torn about this one.
In one room, Blackberry's main innovations were the keyboard and having mail in your pocket. (BBM being a semi-third, but harder to operate) The mail in your pocket was a goldmine while it was unique, but they never saw themselves as a single trick pony but as BLACKBERRY with some kind of pixie dust magic, and never did much past this. Their vision was short sighted, and got massively run over by companies (google/android, Apple) that saw the computer-in-your-pocket thing bett