BlackBerry Granted Preliminary Injunction on Physical Smartphone Keyboard

The court granted plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction precluding defendant from selling its smartphone keyboard product and found plaintiff established irreparable harm. "[Plaintiff] has convincingly shown that [its] keyboard designs are a key driver of demand and goodwill for [its] phones. [Defendant's] keyboard directly targets the segment of smartphone users that prefer a physical keyboard, the market in which [plaintiff] competes. . . . To the extent that [defendant] succeeds in allowing users to replace their phone for 'typing and correspondence' with [defendant's] keyboard coupled with an iPhone, it likely does so at the expense of [plaintiff]. . . . I reject [defendant's] contention that [plaintiff] is not irreparably harmed because it is already struggling and losing market share. To hold otherwise would prevent struggling companies from obtaining injunctions at the time when they may be the most vulnerable to harm from infringing conduct."

BlackBerry Limited v. Typo Products LLC, 3-14-cv-00023 (CAND March 28, 2014, Order) (Orrick, J.)