Speaking at the Waterloo Innovation Summit, BlackBerry chief executive John Chen has said that their portfolio of patents is the trump card the company is placing its bets on. This is part of a turnaround strategy from Blackberry as they plan to focus on enterprise and software wings for now.
A massive patent portfolio
Blackberry currently has close to 44000 patents, confirmed Chen. Interestingly,
they also have one of the youngest portfolio patents in the market. In such a scenario, Blackberry is eyeing to monetize all major patents to move the company forward.
BlackBerry’s first quarter results have revealed that they have seen massive profits from the monetization of IPs. The licensing and software-based revenues have seen a hike by more than 150 percent and currently stands at $137 million.
The big deal is
The profits follow a couple of new licensing deals BlackBerry has etched with Cisco Systems Inc and with another unannounced company. Chen states that the main challenge lies in creating a balance between securing its patents and monetizing the same using collaboration-based licensing deals. He says, “If you go too far and become too aggressive, you become a (patent) troll.”
He also stated that if monetization is gradual, then it consumes a lot of extra time but the time factor is a way more important factor than one thinks. Therefore, the need of the hour is to strike a healthy balance. For now, Blackberry plans on heightening its innovation and staying at the top of its game in the field of secure communications. He wrapped up saying, “The fact that a company is financially not doing that well doesn’t mean it can’t innovate.”
