Software Firm Sues Research in Motion Over Blackberry BBX Name

Fresh Mexico firm claims trademark infringement over BBX name.

Software firm BASIS International Ltd yesterday filed a lawsuit (pdf) against Blackberry maker Research in Motion over the firm’s choice of name for its fresh Blackberry operating system, following up on a legal threat it made the prior week.

Research in Motion disclosed its next generation Blackberry BBX the prior week, and BASIS states it immediately began receiving confusing inquiries from its clients. BASIS provides software development tools that allow people to write products not tied to a particular operating system, counting multiple mobile platforms. BASIS calls its products BBX.

In its suit, BASIS writes:

Following RIM’s public notice of its BBX operating system, BASIS began receiving inquiries from confused clients. In addition to the inevitable confusion created by RIM’s use of the mark BBX for related goods, clients and prospective clients are also likely to wrongly believe that software applications created using BASIS’ development tools are only compatible with RIM’s BBX operating system, thus impairing and destroying BASIS’ reputation for providing software development tools for cross-platform development.

This reminds me a bit of Apple licensing the iOS and iPhone names from Cisco.