In March 2016, Blackbird Technologies filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Lenovo in the US District Court for the District of Delaware on a patent relating to a computer display system that transforms from a laptop to a tablet. Last month, the parties settled the case. Wendy Verlander, president and CEO of Blackbird Technologies, stated:
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The inventor of this technology had the vision to create a laptop that converted to a tablet long before tablets were the sought-after technology they are today. We are very pleased that we could help him benefit from his extraordinary insight”.
The lawsuit targeted Lenovo’s ThinkPad S230u Twist device and referred to a registered patent for a “laptop computer with a dual-hinge axis for the monitor and a front-facing port”, naming one Nicholas Pappas as the inventor of such technology.
As a litigation company rather than — as its name might suggest — a technology company, Blackbird is no stranger to the court. Earlier this year, a dispute between Blackbird and Cloudflare was dismissed on the grounds of ineligibility, with a judge deciding that Blackbird had no basis to bring legal action against a company for its use of what was ruled to be an “abstract idea”. Cloudflare later described Blackbird as a “patent troll”.
Lenovo’s ThinkPad S230u Twist, released back in 2013, features a 12.5″ IPS LCD touch screen display with a resolution of 1366 × 768 and a rotating hinge.
