BlackBerry seeks new life from old patents to stem sales decline

FILE PHOTO - A posed Blackberry smartphone is seen at the Research in Motion (RIM) headquarters in Waterloo, November 16, 2009. REUTERS/Mark Blinch/File Photo

BlackBerry Ltd, seeking ways to stem revenue declines, is dusting off its old patents and asking other companies to pay up for using technology BlackBerry claims it invented years ago. 

The latest skirmish broke out on March6, when BlackBerry sued Facebook Inc. in federal court in Los Angeles, claiming the social media giant has built swaths of its empire on messaging technology invented by the former smartphone maker when Mark Zuckerberg was still living in a Harvard University dorm room. The move might seem strange, especially at a time when smartphone messaging apps are ubiquitous and don’t seem to be all that different from one another.