BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) CEO, John Chen recently announced that what holds the key to the success in the company’s turnaround strategy is its huge patent portfolio. The company is paying more attention now to its enterprise and software business.
BlackBerry with the youngest patent portfolios
Explaining the company’s overhaul strategy at Waterloo Innovation Summit, Mr. Chen said that BlackBerry at present, possessed approximately 44,000 patents. What is more interesting is the fact that the company is the youngest patent portfolio holder in this industry. According to the CEO, this fact can be used as an advantage in the sense that BlackBerry can mint money from the patents and also refurbish the company’s dead fate.
The company has already monetized on its intellectual property and in the Q1 2015 results declared in June 2015, it revealed how benefit was derived from it. The licensing and software revenue of the company for this time period increased over 150% to touch $137 million.
The revenue was generated mainly because of BlackBerry’s two new deals involving licensing. One of the deals was with Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), while the other was with an anonymous party. The two deals contributed largely to the company’s quarterly software profit.
The challenge for BlackBerry
In this process, the main challenge that BlackBerry faces is the balancing act. The company’s CEO says that it is intimidating for the company to create equilibrium between keeping the patents aggressively safe through lawsuits and monetizing them through licensing agreements.
Chen says that by aggressively safeguarding the patents, you tend to become a butt of jokes regarding patents. The last thing that Blackberry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) would want right now is negative publicity or gaining repute like this. On the other hand, by monetizing the patents in non-aggressive manner, the process consumes a lot of time. Therefore, according to Mr. Chen, this is the most challenging aspect of cashing on patents.
However, the CEO indicated that BlackBerry’s further strategic plans remain confined to innovation and in being the market leader of its forte, i.e., secure communications.
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