RIM files suit against Kik, claims patent infringement

By on Dec 1, 2010 at 10:13 AM
Breaking December 1, 2010

You know the popular messaging service Kik — the one that took-off like a wildfire in the California hills? Well, Research In Motion actually just filed a lawsuit against Kik claiming patent infringement. This is after RIM suddenly removed Kik from their App World distribution store in addition to terminating their developer account and access. The court filing is public, but we haven’t been able to find the claim yet. We’re assuming it has to do with how Kik visualizes sent, delivered, and read notifications, and have reached out to both Kik and RIM for comment and clarification. CEO of Kik, Ted Livingston, wouldn’t comment on the recently filed lawsuit, but said that Kik would “be putting something out” soon. With 2.5 million users after its launch a little more than a month ago, it’s very interesting to see how RIM is handling this situation, as Kik is one of the first — and largest — credible threats to their BlackBerry Messenger product. Should WhatsApp, PingChat, and other messaging services be worried now that RIM has decided to take legal action? We’ll do some digging and update this story when we hear back from RIM.

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  • Anonymous

    Rim wants Kik Dead before the big boys snatch Kik.

  • eurovrtkn

    My question is “why now???” There are so many apps that are similar to RIMS BBM ( Black Berry Messenger) Kik may have a similar concept to the BBM but it gives users to communicate through all carriers no matter what smartphone OS they are using. To me RIM feels threatened due to the ample amount of Kik users and downloads it has received and generated thus far.
    I’ve been a BlackBerry user for sometime now and I did make the jump into iPhones & Android OS for many reasons. Mainly that everytime RIM came out with a new handset it still looked and felt the same.
    But Overall…RIM needs to stop hating on the little guy. They should be more focused on how to come out with better handsets rather than wasting time on filing suite against Kik.
    Kik is here to stay and is enjoyed by many.

  • RealDeal

    …Or maybe they are suing them to actually protect their intellectual property that they paid money to develop and have a right to protect. The fact that this is the first and only messaging app RIM has sued tells me RIM is not trying to kill competitors to BBM, but is protecting its property.

  • http://twitter.com/trini_pirate trini_pirate

    Desperately clinging to your last chance of survival I see.

    • DTownTony

      of course they are desperate! they got smoked last month by 0.5% in total US smart phone usage. Between that and shipping a record 12+ million phones last quarter they are clearly a dying company.

      • DTownTony

        not to mention Steve Jobs made of them……when Stev-O-burrito makes fun of you, well that’s the ultimate sign of failure.

  • pepper

    Ted Livingston worked for RIM. Its suspected that he used proprietary information to develop this application.

    patent infringement = no bueno.

  • ChicagoV

    Largest threat?? Stop feeding into hype and do some research, Ping Chat is at 5M users while Kik is at 2.5M learn to do some math before writing up your stories.

  • BR14

    No other device vendor can truly emulate BBM because out of the box no other device vendor has true push.

    Other devices simulate push by polling constantly (and therefore consuming battery power v.quickly).

    What Kiks and other IM vendors success shows is that BBM truly is a killer app. RIM doesn’t need to kill Kik to survive because Kik demonstrates to everyone else why BlackBerry is the best communications device out there. There may be better devices in other areas (though the Torch closes most gaps) but nothing compares to BB for messaging.

    That and the fact other IM clients have not been sued shows clearly that the reason Kik is under fire is not because they represent competition but for other contractual reasons.

    Kiks office is across the road from a RIM building and its owner apparently worked for RIM. Doesn’t take much of a leap to work out what happened.

  • CrimsonZA

    Leeroy Jenkins!

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