On Tuesday, BlackBerry Ltd announced that it intends to sell patents, which are mainly related to its mobile devices, for a sum of up to $900 million. This move comes after the Canadian software company terminated a previous agreement with Catapult IP Innovations Inc.
Under the agreement, Malikie Innovations Ltd will purchase the patents and pay $170 million in cash upon the closing of the deal, with an additional payment of $30 million after three years. BlackBerry will also receive annual cash royalties from the profits earned from the patents, which include messaging and wireless networking technologies, among others.
Malikie is a recently established entity of the intellectual property monetization company Key Patent Innovations Ltd.
In the previous year, BlackBerry had announced that it was considering other alternatives for the sale of its patents due to the extended timeline of the deal with Catapult IP Innovations Inc, resulting in a loss of exclusivity.
“Catapult was unable to secure financing that would have enabled it to complete the previously announced transaction on amended terms that were acceptable to BlackBerry,” The company based in Canada made this statement.
BlackBerry was previously recognized for its mobile devices that included a small QWERTY physical keyboard and the BBM instant messaging service. However, the company’s primary operations today consist of cybersecurity and software solutions used by automobile manufacturers.
In the previous year, the company discontinued its smartphone services, which was the end result of years of losing market share to Apple’s iPhones and competing Android devices.