RIM STATEMENT - RIM has not yet received a copy of the legal complaint described in Basis International’s press release, but we do not believe the marks are confusing, particularly since our respective companies are in different lines of business.

Looks like RIM either forgot to check the current trademarks or just simply ignored the fact that BBX -- the new name for their upcoming OS for tablets and phones -- was already a registered trademark of a company called Basis International. Shortly after hearing the announcement, lawyers for BASIS filed legal actions against Research In Motion.

"BASIS Chairman and CEO, Nico Spence, said, “We have thousands of product licenses installed worldwide with the ‘BBX’ prefix that run on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and other proprietary UNIX OSs from IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and SUN, with mobile clients running Apple iOS, Google Android, and Windows Mobile. We are fielding numerous customer inquiries voicing their confusion about the RIM announcement.”

Not exactly the first time such a case has arisen. Apple ran into issues with Cisco back when the iPhone was announced and settled up eventually. What it really breaks down to for the most part is just some rich people exchanging money for the right to go ahead and use a name.

Oddly enough, the two companies are related as noted by BASIS Chairman and CEO, Nico Spence stating “Ironically, BASIS’ BBx may aid RIM in its quest to grab a share of the application market for mobile devices in that any application created with BASIS’ BBx for the Android or iOS mobile devices will also run on BlackBerry products.”

Source: Business Wire; via: CrackBerry Forums