BlackBerry Files Patent Infringement Suit Against Twitter

BlackBerry Ltd BB has reportedly filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Twitter Inc TWTR over its mobile messaging applications. The suit follows similar cases against Facebook, Inc. FB and Snap Inc SNAP.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, alleges that Twitter has violated six BlackBerry patents, including pioneering features like push notifications, mobile advertising techniques and the capability to silence notifications for a message thread. The Canadian technology firm has further accused Twitter of unlawfully utilizing some of the "functionality enhancing features" that made "BlackBerry's products such a critical and commercial success" to siphon off its customers.

In March 2018, BlackBerry had filed a patent infringement case against Facebook, alleging violations related to certain messaging features, including unread message notifications and messaging in games. It also accused Facebook of breaching its patents pertaining to security, user interface features, battery-efficient status updates, timestamps and the act of tagging family and friends in photographs. This was followed by a similar lawsuit against Snap in April.

Both these cases are still pending in the court, as U.S. District Judge George Wu allowed BlackBerry to pursue most of its infringement claims. It remains to be seen whether the case against Twitter is forwarded to the same judge due to the similarity of the suits.

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