NETW 583 Week 3 Case Study 2: Research in Motion (GRADED)

NETW583 Research in Motion, better known as RIM, was founded in 1984 by mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin. RIM attempted to commercialize a system that displayed information that was received wirele ssly on a TV (Fingas, 2013). Blackberry spent almost the next 20 years becoming the leader in the wireless data communication devices. The Blackberry that is known today, started in March 2002 then RIM launched the Blackberry 5810. In 2005 the 8700 series finally provided the consumer market with not only an email device, but a phone and full keyboard all in one device. From 2005 to 2010, RIM saw itself rise to the top of the smartphone market and then tumble quickly to the bottom. Having lost an enormous amount of market share, RIM once again attempted to increase its market share by releasing the Blackberry 10 in 2013 (Fingas, 2013). Over the life of the company, RIM was depended upon by corporations worldwide due to their OS and trustworthiness in the security of their product (Geller, 2009). In being so popular and such a large part of the market at one point, RIM was forced to defend itself from claims of patent infringement as well as accuse other companies of the same. Following are some examples of a few of the patent cases RIM was involved in over the years. 1. RIM filed a complaint against Glenayre Electronics, Inc. for infringing on RIM’s Blackberry Single Mailbox Integration Patent which was part of the BlackBerry wireless email solution (Research In Motion, 2001). 2. RIM filed a complaint against Handspring for infringing on RIM’s keyboard patents in several Handspring devices (Fried, 2002). 3. Patent holding company NTP sued RIM for multiple patent violations which at one point even threatened to shut down the entire Blackberry network. On March 3, 2006 RIM finally reached an agreement that cost RIM an additional $612.5 million on top of all the litigation costs from the previous years. RIM felt that the lawsuit was hurting its business and needed to end the suit even though the patent office was almost at the point ruling the patents invalid (Kelley, 2006). 4. Motorola filed a complaint against RIM in 2010 with the International Trade Commission requesting a ban on importing of BlackBerry devices due to an alleged infringement on 5 patents (Patel, 2010). RIM provides a very good example for both TCO A and TCO B. For TCO A, RIM has been at the forefront of innovation by providing first wireless communication displayed on TVs to providing users handheld mobile devices that could send and receive email ahead of other competitors. For TCO B, protection of technological innovations, above are four examples out of many cases where RIM had both defend itself from being sued as well as suing other companies over patents that were being used in its BlackBerry devices. References Fingas, J. (2013, January 28). RIM: A brief history from Budgie to BlackBerry 10. Retrieved March 22, 2015, from endgadget: