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Trademark Trouble For RIM Over New "BBX" Name
AZA43 writes "As if its latest BlackBerry service outage--the worst in company history--and the mass exodus of BlackBerry users to iOS and Android weren't bad enough, RIM is now facing a potential trademark lawsuit over the name of its next generation BlackBerry OS: BBX. The BBX announcement was the most significant news to come from RIM's BlackBerry Developer Conference this week, and now it looks like RIM may have change the upcoming platform's name to something else. RIM just can't seem to do anything right these days."
I mean, come on people - you could hire a fucking INTERN for $10 an hour to look and see if there's any prior art or previous use of the term BBX, and I'm pretty sure that even if the kid isn't that bright or skilled, after about a week, they would have been able to give some kind of a thumbs up/down on this. This is just GLARING incompetence and mind boggling arrogance on the part of RIM.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Why not just go straight to BBUNIX then? That has a nice 70's-80's ring to it.
I mean, c'mon, do a google search before you name a flagship product, at least check to see if the name has already been used.
The BBx folks (company name BASIS) have been around for over 25 years and have many thousands of sites using their products in the US, Eurozone, and the far east. A large VAR base and some great new products built with Java that run almost anywhere, from server to PC to hand held phone or tablet..
Maybe the RIM folks think they'll get away with it because they're bigger ?
Other suggestions:
BBXeh
iBBX
BB-XXX
BBX 360
neoBBX
?
This is going to cost RIM money. BBX, Business Basic eXtended, was a bigger deal 20 years ago than it is now, but it still has some user base. 3 letters, though, are a weak trademark, unless very well known. For a rather lame choice of letters, though, this was dumb.
Apple had to settle with Cisco over "IPhone"'; Cisco did in fact have a VoIP phone system called that. Apple over the years had to pay off McIntosh Amplifiers and Apple Records (both notable brands in the 1960s). Apple had a second round of trouble when they moved into the music industry, and had to pay out even more money to Apple Records.
General Motors got into trouble with Beretta (GM: cars, Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta: guns), and settled that one relatively inexpensively.
Their product isn't even called BBx anymore. They call it BBj so I don't understand why their customers would be confused. http://www.basis.com/bbj
If BBX is supposed to be a combination of BlackBerry and QNX (BBX), and they can't use it, then they should just name it BlackBerry and QNX (BBQ).
Might be catchy; "Hey, I'll BBQ you later!"
"As if its latest BlackBerry service outage--the worst in company history--and the mass exodus of BlackBerry users to iOS and Android weren't bad enough, RIM is now facing a potential trademark lawsuit over the name of its next generation BlackBerry OS: BBX. The BBX announcement was the most significant news to come from RIM's BlackBerry Developer Conference this week, and now it looks like RIM may have change the upcoming platform's name to something else. RIM just can't seem to do anything right these days."
Who cares what they call their OS? I don't base my OS selection on name, but rather on performance.
This article is the tech-equivalent of critiquing the merits of what outfit Kim Kardashian wore out last weekend.
Nobody in the world has ever fucking heard of the other BBX before.
I've fucking heard of BBx! I'm surprised it still exists. I can't believe there's a fucking Thoroughbred Basic for Vista. At least MAI Basic Four, Micro Five, and Microshare seem to have fallen by the wayside.
But JHFCoaS, nothing says "stuck in the '70s" like BBx. Oy!
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
What about BBQ?
I'll bring the coal!
-- no sig today
And if anyone actually was curious, the PlayBook Native SDK actually does run on Linux, and a lot of the F/OSS they've been porting to it is posted on Github.
http://blackberry.github.com/
The iPhone trademark had been filed in the 90s by a company that Cisco bought in 2000. The trademark hadn't been used in a phone since 2001, and had expired, except it was in an extended period when Cisco could still renew it by paying an extra fee.
To renew it, Cisco had to show the trademark was currently in use in commerce. The proof would be a photo of the retail packaging sent to the USPTO. So Cisco literally took an existing Linksys VOIP phone box, slapped an "iPhone" sticker on it, and sent that to the USPTO. In short, Cisco committed fraud to retrieve their abandoned trademark now that it had value to Apple.
Cisco didn't even start selling this re-labeled phone as an iPhone until AFTER Apple had been in negotiations with Cisco over the technically expired trademark. Cisco didn't really have a case, which is why they settled for a vague promise of "interoperability."