Back in early 2018, BlackBerry (NYSE: BB) sued Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) and Snap (NYSE: SNAP) over allegedly violating seven patents for BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), which cover timestamps, message notifications, push notifications for ads, tagging photos, and mapping activities. Facebook and Snap filed motions to invalidate BlackBerry's patents last June, and all the independent claims for one of the patents (regarding time stamps) were invalidated two months later.
On Sept. 5, a district court in Los Angeles tentatively ruled that two of BlackBerry's other disputed patents (involving targeted ads) were ineligible for protection because they were merely "dressing up the abstract concept of collecting and compiling information." The court also invalidated two additional claims for location-based patents, which were only aimed at Snapchat.
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