this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
846 points (99.3% liked)

Technology

63082 readers
3627 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
846
BlackBerry's iconic keyboard patent has expired (mobilesyrup.com)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
163 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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days 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 1 day 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 2 days ago

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