If there ever was a Charlie Brown of the tech world one would have to vote for it to be RIM. No matter which way it turns lately the company seems to be constantly kicking at the football but like Charlie it is forever missing and ending up flat on its back.
As part of its efforts to build back some good press and keep the Blackberry alive in the ever increasingly competitive smartphone world RIM announced its next generation operating system for its smartphones; however no sooner than it breathed the word “BBX” than it found itself being served with a lawsuit from a company that already owns a trademark for ‘BBX’.
Yes it seems that RIM went ahead and named its new smartphone operating system, that was based on QNX, as well as the developer tools for it, then a company in New Mexico by the name of Basis International claimed that RIM was infringing on their trademark.
So what does Basis International do?
Well, it just so happens that they develop and market tools for developers which, as Basis points out creates confusion in the market place – one of the needed ingredients for a successful trademark lawsuit. Basis International points out that they have already been fielding calls from concerned customers regarding their BBX product and whether RIM had bought it from them.
RIM is claiming that there is no confusion over the name and that they came up with the BBX name by combining their Blackberry name and their QNX operating system name.
Ya, good luck with that one in court RIM.
via Ars Technica