BlackBerry Becomes A Patent Troll By Suing Avaya

It’s a sad day in the tech world as the news has come out that BlackBerry is suing phone and communication company Avaya for patent infringement. The suit was filed in a court in the Northern District of Texas which is a popular place for patent trolls to file lawsuits. In short, BlackBerry has joined the world of patent trolls:

The complaint states BlackBerry sent a letter to Avaya on December 17, 2015 notifying them of infringement and likely to take a license to BlackBerry’s patent portfolio. The parties likely entered into a six-month standstill agreement to negotiate an agreement (or Avaya ignored the letter). Obviously, nothing was agreed too and BlackBerry was forced to file a suit. BlackBerry in the suit alleges that Avaya infringed eight patents across patents that cover seven technology areas

A couple of things jump out at me. The first thing is that seeing as BlackBerry bought Good Technology, and Good Technology was once NTP who was a notorious patent troll who was very good at scoring wins in patent lawsuits, it may not be a surprise that BlackBerry has taken on this behaviour. The second thing that pops out at me is that being a patent troll is a great revenue stream as they have 44,000 patents that they can leveraged for this purpose. Not exactly the most noble purpose, but I guess it’s all about making money by any way possible for BlackBerry.

Sad. Very Sad.

Strangely, I’m not shocked by this

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