BlackBerry and Timex Enter Licensing Agreement, Possible Smartwatch Incoming
Just last year BlackBerry – a company which made a name in the industry by making highly secure business smartphones – made a licensing agreement with TCL which took charge of manufacturing and selling phones sold under the BlackBerry brand.
Now BlackBerry seems to have his eyes on another niche of the mobile market. The company has entered yet another patent licensing agreement – this time with Timex – a watch specialist. This could mean a BlackBerry smartwatch might be coming soon. Huge emphasis on “could.”
Before we get ahead of ourselves, you should know that right now we don’t know the exact details of the contract. Which means we can’t only speculate which of the 40,000 BlackBerry patents are being targeted with this deal. The Canadian company’s portfolio is a vast one and includes patents for “wireless communication, networking infrastructure, acoustics, messaging, enterprise software, operating systems, virtualization, and cybersecurity.”
However, Blackberry’s senior director of intellectual property licensing, Jerald Gnuschke did offer as a hint by saying the agreement will enable the company to focus “on further patent licensing in the mobile communication market.” Which gives us hope to believe in a BlackBerry smartwatch.
We could certainly see Timex and BlackBerry engaged in a collaboration. But would consumers be interested in another smartwatch product? Tell us what you think in the comment section below.