RIM Files Suit Against Kik, Citing Patent Infringement

By Matthew Chung on 12/01/2010, filed in Home > CellPhones

Seems like the relationship between RIM and Kik is deteriorating. We already know that RIM yanked Kik off its App World store and now the company is suing Kik, citing patent infringement. Considering that Kik offers some pretty good functionality for free, offering a good alternative to WhatsApp, PingChat and other messaging services similar to BlackBerry Messenger, it’s no surprise that the company’s userbase has surged to a good 2.5 million users in slightly over a month since its launch. It’s hard to estimate what the outcome of this will be, but hopefully the end user doesn’t get the short end of the stick.

RIM: RIM is the acronym for Research In Motion, the Canadian company behind the BlackBerry brand. RIM was founded in the mid 90s by Mike Lazaridis and with Jim Balsillie and went IPO (Initial Public Offering) in 1998. Its claim to fame was to make mobile email really effective and enterprises quickly adopted its devices and associated software and services which were highly lucrative. With the rise of iOS and Android devices, the BlackBerry franchise bumped into trouble and its decline prompted RIM to take a radical step by overhauling its BlackBerry operating system (OS) completely with QNX. The first version of the QNX BlackBerry OS is BlackBerry 10 or BB10.

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