• Tweet

 BBM Canada, a group that provides consumer analytics and intelligence to broadcasters and has been using the “BBM” name since 1944, is in the midst of an ongoing lawsuit with RIM over the name that began way back in August, 2010. BBM Canada’s CEO Jim McLeod told The Globe and Mail that his group attempted to negotiate with RIM — going so far as to offer to rebrand itself at RIM’s expense — but was rebuffed. McLeod’s next move was apparently to go public with the case in the run up to the next hearing, telling The Globe and Mail ”We want our name back.” Now, instead of offering to rename BBM Canada, the group is seeking damages and asking the court to place on injunction on RIM to prevent it from continuing to use the name.

For its part, RIM attempted to gain a trademark on “BBM” in Canada in February 2010, but at best the application is pending. RIM’s response to the recent attention brought to the case, in a statement to All Things D, is strongly worded:

Since its launch in July 2005, BlackBerry Messenger has become a tremendously popular social networking service. In 2010, RIM started to formally adopt the BBM acronym, which had, at that point, already been organically coined and widely used by BlackBerry Messenger customers as a natural abbreviation of the BlackBerry Messenger name. The services associated with RIM’s BBM offering clearly do not overlap with BBM Canada’s services and the two marks are therefore eligible to co-exist under Canadian trademark law. The two companies are in different industries and have never been competitors in any area. We believe that BBM Canada is attempting to obtain trademark protection for the BBM acronym that is well beyond the narrow range of the services it provides and well beyond the scope of rights afforded by Canadian trademark law. RIM has therefore asked the Court to dismiss the application and award costs to RIM. Further, for clarity, RIM’s application to register BBM as a trademark with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) is pending and we are confident that a registration will eventually issue. The inference by BBM Canada that CIPO has refused RIM’s BBM trademark application is quite frankly very misleading

BBM is an important brand for RIM, in fact it is one of the best assets the company and we are eager to see if RIM will put up a fight.  A lot of BlackBerry users are on RIM’s smartphones simply because of the BBM service. The next hearing is on January 11th.

Source: The Verge

Solape Dina

Student at University Of Ottawa. Graduated from Vivian Fowler in 2009. BA HONOURS Major in Psychology(BA) and major in Criminology. I am writing about technology because it is an important factor in the world today and it is rapidly changing the world. Being part of a tech blog is a great opportunity for me because it is not something that people really concentrate on (Nigerians). I intend on informing people about what is going on in the tech world by providing first hand quality information. I will blog with a concentration on business, marketing, and legal matters. Believe it or not business makes the world go round as it is our major means of trading and making money. I hope to grow and mature while being part of Technesstivity in terms of expanding my knowledge about gadgets, solving everyday technological problems and technology in general.

More Posts