Ryan Seacrest attends an NBA playoff game
BlackBerry took a break Friday from dealing with falling revenue, rescinded sales attempts, and a lost CEO to take on what one tech blog wryly describes as the company’s “real threat”: American Idol host Ryan Seacrest.
The company is suing Typo Products, cofounded by Seacrest and entrepreneur Laurence Hallier, for creating a case with a keyboard that allegedly infringes on BlackBerry’s patents. “Typo has blatantly copied BlackBerry’s keyboard,” the company said in a press release Friday, conceding that it was at least “flattered by the desire to graft our keyboard onto other smartphones.”
Here’s what the Typo case looks like:
And here’s a BlackBerry:
BlackBerry isn’t making any friends in the celebrity world this week. The struggling company also ended its relationship with singer Alicia Keys on Thursday, who had been serving as a creative director.