Blackberry accuses Twitter of illegally using message technology in lawsuit

Blackberry will see Twitter in court.

On Wednesday, former mobile phone giant BlackBerry filed a lawsuit against Twitter accusing the social media company of patent infringement. BlackBerry claims that Twitter is illegally using mobile messaging technology that the company created.

In its lawsuit, BlackBerry refers to Twitter as “a relative latecomer to the mobile messaging world.” The company claims that Twitter “created mobile messaging applications that co-opt BlackBerry’s innovations, using a number of the innovative user interface and functionality enhancing features that made BlackBerry’s products such a critical and commercial success in the first place.”

In total, BlackBerry says that Twitter is infringing on six of its patents -- covering everything from push notifications to mobile advertising.

BlackBerry states that it had reached out to Twitter in an attempt to resolve the intellectual property dispute, but was unable to reach an agreement. The company asserts in its suit that the use of its “mobile messaging innovations harms BlackBerry and provides an undeserved windfall” to Twitter.

If this all sounds familiar, that’s because BlackBerry has filed similar lawsuits against Facebook and Snapchat just last year. Both those suits are still pending litigation.

In 2016, BlackBerry announced it would no longer build its own hardware and instead focus on other areas of its business such as software.

Another one of those revenue-driving areas? Its patents.

“We have today about 44,000 patents,” said BlackBerry CEO John Chen at the 2015 Waterloo Innovation Summit. “The good thing about this is that we also have one of the youngest patent portfolios in the entire industry, so monetization of our patents is an important aspect of our turnaround.”

The sad reality here is that BlackBerry, once one of world’s most popular phone companies, is effectively becoming a patent troll.

When reached for comment, a Blackberry spokesperson told Mashable,"We don't comment on pending litigation." A Twitter spokesperson also declined to comment.

It looks like this one's going to be settled in court.