Slip-On Keyboard Company Has To Pay BlackBerry $860K For Continuing To Sell iPhone Accessory

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BlackBerry’s trying its very best to stay relevant, and as such, it’s going after one company that actually seems to admire its phone design: After suing the makers of a slip-on iPhone keyboard by Typo Products that was similar to its own keyboard and successfully nabbing an injunction against sales of the accessory, BlackBerry will now get $860,000 after it claimed the company continued to sell the product.

A federal judge said this week that the Ryan Seacrest-backed company owes the cash for violating that injunction barring sales of its original iPhone keyboard case, reports re/code.

Typo had released a newer model of the keyboard that it said didn’t come in conflict with BlackBerry’s intellectual property rights, but BlackBerry wasn’t about to give up this particular bone.

BlackBerry asked for $2.6 million in sanctions plus attorney’s fees, saying Typo made at least two bulk sales of the original Typo cases and performed 100 warranty replacements after the injunction went into effect.

A Typo representative said in a statement that the ruling is “part of the ongoing patent litigation related to the initial Typo product.”

“It has no impact on the Typo 2 product currently in the marketplace or our other planned product releases for the tablet.”

BlackBerry’s representative kept it sweet and (I can only imagine smugly) simple, saying: “The court’s order speaks for itself.”

Judge Orders Keyboard Case Maker Typo to Pay BlackBerry $860,000 [re/code]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist