Let's all close our eyes and go back to 2009 so we can feel the thrill of typing our first email on the go.

I had two BlackBerry devices for work, right about the time they were going away. I’d heard the keyboard was good on earlier models but it seemed like the quality had gotten pretty cheap on the later phones. The BlackBerry 10 OS on my last phone was actually pretty good, and probably would’ve kept them in the market if they’d launched it 5 years earlier.

  • kamen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    161·
    2 days ago

    Can someone explain how something as generic as a keyboard can be a subject to patents?

    • cellardoor@lemmy.worldEnglish
      152·
      2 days ago

      TL:DR patents are important, but easily abused.

      Yes, I’ll try.

      Patents can cover many aspects of design. Sometimes, these aspects are positive and deserve protection for the original inventors. Other times, the claims could be so obscure and ‘thats obvious to anyone’ that it’s a waste to protect them - but (sometimes ignorant) patent attorneys fail to do their research and award patents anyway.

      It could be that the keyboard being below the screen in that form factor was considered novel. It could be the trackball used in the centre. It could be the two combined, then attached to a phone. It could be the shaping and ergonomic aspect of the keyboard. It could be raises or detents to aid location of keys for fast typing on a handheld device.

    • KubeRootEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      From my point of view, the idea is simple. Assuming everything is working as intended:

      There are no phones with full keyboards. Nobody has made buttons that are reliable, small enough to form a keyboard on a phone, reasonable in price, and actually usable. A company now wants to make a phone with a keyboard. They have to do a lot of research and development, not knowing ahead of time if they will succeed, or if the project will fail.

      If there’s no patents, then the moment they succeed, other companies get to make phones with keyboards based on the same designs. The company actually putting in the work has to spend money, and is effectively punished for it, since other companies get to start similar projects without the risk and with an example to start from.

      The patent system instead means the company putting in the work and creating something new is rewarded - they get exclusivity on a specific development for a time, preventing other companies from undercutting them.

      The system isn’t perfect, but the truth is, a keyboard on a phone might seem obvious now, but somebody had to be the first to try, and the system encourages companies trying new things.