BlackBerry signs license deal with Florida's BLU, ends patent dispute

[October 12, 2017]  (Reuters) - BlackBerry Ltd said on Thursday it signed a new license agreement with BLU Products Inc, a Florida-based maker of low-end Android phones, that would end patent disputes between the two companies.

A man holds the new BlackBerry Key One during his presentation event before the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 25, 2017. REUTERS/Albert Gea/File Photo

Canada's BlackBerry filed lawsuits against BLU in 2016, as part of the handset-maker-turned-software-company's move to make cash off a bunch of technology patents it had collected in its heyday.

Thursday's agreement will include on-going payments from BLU to BlackBerry, the companies said, but did not give further details.

The settlement will allow Blackberry "to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market," said Jerald Gnuschke, senior director of Intellectual Property Licensing at BlackBerry.

BlackBerry, which holds about 40,000 worldwide patents and applications, has been long been focusing on software sales and licensing after its once-popular phones lost out to Apple and others in the smartphone industry.

(Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.