Canada’s Research In Motion (RIM) has sued Samsung for trademark infringement at the U.S. Federal Court in Los Angeles. The reason: not only does the Korean manufacturer’s new BlackJack smartphone feature a similar form factor to RIM’s venerable line of BlackBerry devices, but it has a similar name as well, according to RIM.
According to RIM, BlackJack “constitutes false designation of origin, unfair competition, and trademark dilution”. RIM’s filing adds that “Samsung is misleading the public into falsely believing that Samsung’s goods and services are connected with RIM’s business.”
With this suit, RIM appears to be laying claim to the word ‘Black’ when it is used in the name of any type of mobile handset. RIM is afraid that BlackJack may confuse some people. I’m not so sure people are so easily confused.
In a related story, apparently RIM is intentionally crippling the Bluetooth speed in its devices.
Black Jack gum trademark is owned by Cadbury’s, nowadays. I think they may wish to slap Blackberry upside the head over this — if they so desire. Or Samsung.
LoL.
My company has had nothing but problems with the BlackBerry so personally I think that Samsung SHOULD have gone with a different name so that their potential customers don’t confuse the device with the quality lacking RIM product!
Samsung SHOULD have gone with a different name so that their potential customers don’t confuse the device with the quality lacking RIM product
I agree. I had a blackerry product through Sprint for a few days. I ended up returning it in favor of the Treo 700P. The blackberry has a difficult interface, poor web browsing capabilities and costs far more in monthly access charges then the Treo using the standard Sprint power vision plan. The only disadvantage I see in the Blackjack is that is using Windows mobile, which is horrible, bloated and buggy for use in a smartphone. M$ would have been smarter to produce a lean, powerful mobile OS instead of trying to cram their crap windows desktop OS into a handheld.
To be honest, the few times recently I have seen the ads for these on television, I too assumed they were made by the Blackberry folks because of the name similarity.
Ha, ha, ha… what a society… hey guys, I want to own the world “blue”… it is my favourite colour.
RIM has invested a lot of money into the Blackberry. It is unfair to them to have someone trying to capitalize on that and RIM’s success. To me, I can see the possible confusion.
This type of litigation was started by the fine folks at Apple over there owning the “POD” name.
Gee, Dave — I didn’t know Apple deserved the credit for discovering greedy trademark lawyers.
Funny this should come up. I recently bought a Lionel train for my father for Christmas. On the box, it claims that Lionel owns the trademark on Blue and Orange.
9 This type of litigation was started by the fine folks at Apple over there owning the “POD” name.
Most amusing, given Apple Records’ suit against Apple Computer – for their use of the word “apple”…. in 1978.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer#Litigation
Apple’s earliest court action dates to 1978 when Apple Records, The Beatles-founded record label, filed suit against Apple Computer for trademark infringement.
Isn’t this why trademark laws were created? So that if company A had a successful product, company B could not throw something out with a similar look and name hoping that consumers would buy it by mistake? Sounds to me like they are rightfully protecting themselves from trademark infringement.
13 – true, and I’ll bet it’ll be hard to justify why a similar looking device with similar functions has a similar name.
The headline is very misleading on this post…
I bet they own the berry part also.
as in CranBerry right?
they are missing a juicy lawsuit!
Maybe Sony should start sueing Coby (http://www.cobyusa.com/) since not only the name sounds very familiar but they also use the same font for their name.
According to their packaging, Cadbury apparently owns the colour purple.
re. Craziest lawsuits.
The story of the burglar locked in the garage is false. For details about this alleged lawsuit see: http://www.stellaawards.com/ and look in bogus.
A to debunk or verify Urban Legends is: http://www.snopes.com/
I expect better research from you guys. I found this information in three minutes.