Ryan Seacrest’s Typo Keyboard will not be the next iPhone Idol, as the company is now prevented from making keyboards for the iPhone or any other smartphone in the future.
BlackBerry and Typo Keyboard have reached the end of a lengthy lawsuit over Typo’s BlackBerry-esque iPhone case that adds a physical keyboard to the Apple product (via The Verge). The lawsuit dating back to January 2014 argued that Typo, which saw significant publicity due to Ryan Seacrest’s backing, willfully infringed on patents and “blatantly copied” BlackBerry’s keyboard design.
While the full terms of the settlement haven’t been released, a press release from BlackBerry says Typo has agreed not to produce keyboards for any devices with screens smaller than 7.9-inches. So unless smartphones get obnoxiously large, this would seem to be the end of the road for Typo and its smartphone keyboard.
According to the terms of the agreement, Typo could produce a keyboard for devices such as tablets, that sport screens larger than 7.9-inches.
The Seacrest-backed Typo keyboard debuted in January 2014, and almost immediately faced legal action from BlackBerry over the design of the Typo keyboard. Typo responded by debuting the Typo2 for the iPhone 6, which the company said avoided the alleged patent infringement, however Blackberry responded to that product with another lawsuit in February.
