BlackBerry is not messing around, Ryan Seacrest. IDG News, via InfoWorld, reports that BlackBerry this week asked a court in California to block all sales of Typo, the iPhone keyboard attachment co-created by American Idol host Ryan Seacrest. In its argument before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, BlackBerry claims that “Typo’s blatant copying of BlackBerry’s keyboard presents an imminent threat of irreparable harm to BlackBerry, and that threat is magnified in combination with the significant market power of the iPhone.” While this legal analysis may indeed be accurate, it’s still remarkable for BlackBerry to admit that a $99 keyboard attachment poses an “imminent threat of irreparable harm” to its entire business. BGR recently reviewed the Typo and found that “it’s a well thought out, well designed, well made product by two people who can’t live without their physical keyboard.”
UPDATE: On Twitter, Nilay Patel notes that “‘imminent threat of irreparable harm’ is the legal standard — they have to say that’s what’s happening to block the product.” So it’s probably safe to say that BlackBerry isn’t literally living in fear of Ryan Seacrest and his plastic keyboard.
