RIM: don’t mention "BBX" at the coming DevCon?

BBX is the name of RIM’s future mobile platform which is being designed to once again drive growth in their business. But the name is also that of software developed by Basis International... who are looking to defend their rights.

By unveiling the name of their future BBX mobile platform in October, with this to provide the bridge between BlackBerry OS and QNX (the OS used on their tactile tablet), manufacturer Research in Motion has now been attacked by Basis International.

This is because the editor develops a software solution which is also named BBX, deployed on a range of platforms including light versions which run on mobile OS’s. The company therefore sees that consumers could be confused by the same name being used for two different products in the same domain

Besides the fact that Basis’s BBX solutions are not limited to BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, the developer has indicated that their program provides compatibility functions with Android and iOS to run the software on the BlackBerry platform, helping the manufacturer develop their presence in mobile applications.

Basis International therefore filed legal action in October with a court in New Mexico (the developer is based in Albuquerque) to prevent RIM from using the name BBX to designate their future mobile platform.


Mentioning "BBX" is not allowed!
Going even further, they indicated in their filing that they would be requesting all use of the term "BBX" be banned during RIM’s future developers conference, DevCon Asia, which will take place on the 7th and 8th of December in Singapore.

The developer’s offence is based on the fact that their BBX solution is platform independent, despite claims regularly made by RIM in the press which led some to believe that the software is only available on BlackBerry products.

CEO of Basis International, Nico Spence states "Software developers interested in selecting a platform-independent development tool won't take the time to discover that BASIS' BBX is not the same as BlackBerry BBX".