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

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