Ryan Seacrest startup settles with BlackBerry over keyboard case

WASHINGTON — The company co-founded by American Idol host Ryan Seacrest has agreed to stop selling iPhone cases that made typing on touch screens similar to using a BlackBerry.

In a news release released by BlackBerry, the company says Typo will “permanently discontinue selling anywhere in the world keyboards for smartphones and mobile devices with a screen size of less than 7.9 inches.”

Other details of the settlement were confidential, according to the statement.

The Typo2, which sold for between $75 and $99,  snapped onto an iPhone, and provided a physical keyboard for those frustrated by typing on the Apple touch screen.

In 2014 BlackBerry won a preliminary injunction for Typo’s first product, and was ordered to pay $860,000 in sanctions.

Seacrest helped launch Typo in 2013 and was named in the 2014 lawsuit, but was not named in the just-settled suit.

 

Neal Augenstein

Neal Augenstein has been a general assignment reporter with WTOP since 1997. He says he looks forward to coming to work every day, even though that means waking up at 3:30 a.m.

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