Short answers, pulled from the story.
BlackBerry was a line of mobile devices developed by Research In Motion, a Canadian company. The first device to carry the BlackBerry name was the BlackBerry 850, an email pager released on the 19th of January 1999. It pioneered push email delivery and the QWERTY thumb keyboard that became the brand's defining feature.
CrackBerry was a nickname describing the device's addictive hold on users who found themselves unable to stop checking email. The term was formally recognized by Webster's New World College Dictionary in 2006.
BlackBerry reached its peak in September 2011 with 85 million active subscribers worldwide. By March 2016, that figure had fallen to 23 million, a decline of nearly three-quarters.
Research In Motion settled the suit on the 3rd of March 2006 by agreeing to pay NTP US$612.5 million, described by both sides as a full and final settlement with no future royalties attached. The case had been filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, known in legal circles as the "rocket docket."
Yes. The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures confirmed that both the NSA and GCHQ accessed BlackBerry user data, including email and SMS traffic. GCHQ developed a tool called SCRAPHEAP CHALLENGE that internal documents described as capable of "perfect spoofing of emails from BlackBerry targets."
BlackBerry Limited announced on the 28th of September 2016 that it would cease designing its own hardware and license the brand to outside manufacturers. The last device designed in-house was the BlackBerry KeyOne, released in 2017, and all licensed production ended in 2020.