this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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BlackBerry's iconic keyboard patent has expired (mobilesyrup.com)
submitted 2 days ago by jqubed to c/technology
167 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I had two BlackBerry devices for work, right about the time they were going away. I'd heard the keyboard was good on earlier models but it seemed like the quality had gotten pretty cheap on the later phones. The BlackBerry 10 OS on my last phone was actually pretty good, and probably would've kept them in the market if they'd launched it 5 years earlier.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

So for 20 years, it wasn't possible for anyone but BlackBerry to manufacture phones with the revolutionary technology of... checks notes... keyboards, and now that it is irrelevant to modern devices, is free for anyone to use.

Patents should be abolished.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

Patents should be abolished.

I disagree.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

BB being able to protect itself from the big players is actually a success story of patents. The 800 lb gorilla's of the industry never made as good of a keyboard, but if they could have copied BB's superior design, they would have stomped them in a heartbeat.

There's a lot of shit about what happens for a dying company and selling patents and so forth that absolutely is scummy. Serious discussion needs to happen there, but calling for them to be abolished? That's just naive.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Checks notes, that's not what happened, no. Tons of phones had/have keyboards.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (4 children)

🌝

[–] ikidd 3 points 13 hours ago

Palm had front keyboards

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Nokia had quite a few, the E-line (e.g E6, E63, E71) being some of the most "blackberry" looking ones.

BB didn't have a patent on the idea of a keyboard on a phone, but they did (do?) have a design patent for one of the most optimal layouts and dancing around it was tricky and risky. Or you can just be Typo, directly rip off a BB keyboard, and act surprised when you get sued.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As someone earlier mentioned, unihertz has a few models with physical keyboards.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago

i looked into those myself. it's worth knowing that they're several Android updates behind, so the devices could be less secure.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I had an old htc vertical folder with a leather cased keyboard. If I had a version of that with modern hardware, that would be my jam.