Introduction Intellectual property has been described like “personal identity” that needs to be protected at all costs; if left unprotected the owner of that property is subject to financial losses/ruin or even lawsuits. As was the case of Research in Motion, the company had to fight for its survival in an effort to protect its intellectual property as well as for its survival Challenges that RIM faced in protecting its intellectual property, and how it handled those challenges RIM is a company that has embraced technological innovation and its success has been a result of their key developments as taken from fundinguniverse. om that listed the key developments of RIM as follows: “Key Dates: 1984: Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) is founded by Mike Lazardis. 1988: RIM begins working on wireless data-only applications. 1996: RIM develops a PCMIA plug-in card for computer-enabled wireless e-mail. 1997: RIM goes public and is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. 1999: RIM introduces the BlackBerry personal digital assistant (PDA); Lazardis and a RIM coworker receive an Academy Award for technical achievement. 000: The popular BlackBerry is named Product of the Year by InfoWorld; RIM launches its Wireless Handheld product line. 2002: RIM introduces the BlackBerry 5810, which incorporates cell phone service. ” With the advent of RIM’s BlackBerry’s email service this let to a four year patent battle between RIM and NTP. This disagreement nearly caused an end of service to their email service to their US customers. In an effort to protect their intellectual property, in 2006 RIM had to settle the fight by paying NTP $612. million in exchange of NTP’s rights to its patents going toward. According to the Datamonitor’s publication dated 27 August for RIM’s swot analysis it stated that RIM continues to have intellectual property battles. In 2009 RIM settled with Motorola as well as Visto to enable it to access to “perpetual and fully paid license of certain intellectual property”. They paid $$267. 5 million to Visto alone. Industry factors that influenced RIM RIM’s success story is a result of its technological innovations that were mainly influenced by the following: i.
RIM saw itself as partner with the corporate world in the sense that it would help the organizations in managing information. ii. RIM needed to be able to support worker productivity by balancing technology and information availability Application of the TCOs to RIM RIM has been on the battle field regarding intellectual property showing that innovations need to be protected at the same time RIM also managed to see the benefits of partnering with external networks – network externalities- in an effort to increase its value.
RIM has seen some partnerships with big companies like AT&T, Rogers in offering their customers a BlackBerry for wireless service. They also teamed up with Nextel Communications and Motorola when they developed the new BlackBerry devise. References DATAMONITOR: Research In Motion Limited. (2010). Research In Motion Limited SWOT Analysis, 1-10. Retrieved from EBSCOhost Schilling, Melissa A, Strategic Management of Technological Innovation, 3rd edition http://www. fundinguniverse. com/company-histories/Research-in-Motion-Ltd-Company-History. html