BlackBerry Ltd., seeking ways to stem revenue declines, is dusting off its old patents and asking other companies to pay up for using technology BlackBerry claims it invented years ago.

The latest skirmish broke out on Tuesday, when BlackBerry sued Facebook Inc. in federal court in Los Angeles, claiming the social media giant has built swaths of its empire on messaging technology invented by the former smartphone maker when Mark Zuckerberg was still living in a Harvard University dorm room.

Source: Toronto Star

Date: March 15th, 2018

Link: https://www.thestar.com/business/tech_news/2018/03/07/blackberrys-facebook-suit-tests-giant-amid-patent-siege.html

Discussion

1) Hands up if you have a Blackberry phone?  No one?  Why did Blackberry lose its once incredibly dominant position in the smartphone marketplace?

2) Is it fair to Facebook to say “I have the patent for what you did and you now need to pay up”?