RIM's claim against kik
scribd.com
scribd.com
Basically, they allege that
- Kik's CEO used inside knowledge of RIM's BBM platform to develop Kik
- Kik infringes on a bunch of their patents
- Kik has said bad things on their promotional material about RIM
- Kik was illegally slurping and storing user address book data (even though the claim they were not)
I think the most interesting thing here is how they were accepted into App World without issue as were other similar applications with even more similar behavior to BBM than Kik has had to date. Also interesting is that RIM alleges that Kik will continue all of this infringing activity unless it is stopped by the courts even though there was no mention of a prior cease and desist.
Should be a good fight.
Canada has different rules about C&D for this kind of thing, so that bit isn't surprising.
[1] http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/01/rim-sues-kik-in-canada-fo...
While I think it's fair that RIM protect its BBM patents, I think that Kik has brought more interest to BlackBerry than anything else in recent memory.
Most people I know are behind Kik, some going as far as to say that they won't ever purchase a RIM product (again). So in that sense, RIM's actions against Kik may bring themselves more harm in the end.