Wi-Lan, BlackBerry settle patent litigation

Smartphone maker BlackBerry Ltd and patent licensing company Wi-Lan Inc have struck a deal to dismiss all pending patent litigations between them.

The financial terms and other details, however, were not disclosed.

Wi-Lan, which has a string of patent lawsuits against smartphone makers, alleged in December last year that BlackBerry - then known as Research In Motion Ltd - had infringed a patent related to Bluetooth technologies.

Wi-Lan had alleged that BlackBerry's PlayBook tablet and a wide range of its smartphones, including the Bold, Torch, Pearl and Storm, utilise technology that infringes its patent.

In May, Ottawa-based Wi-Lan filed a new lawsuit against the struggling smartphone maker in Florida related to mobile phones with high-speed wireless technology known as long-term evolution (LTE).

As part of the deal announced on Wednesday, BlackBerry has obtained a license to use some of Wi-Lan's patents that are the subject of the suit in Florida, Wi-Lan said.

The two companies will discuss licensing on certain other wireless technologies, said Wi-Lan, which has also filed patent infringement lawsuits against Apple Inc and HTC Corp among others over the past year.

Copyright @ Thomson Reuters 2013