In the latest legal wranglings between Good
Technology and Research In Motion, a
Superior Court judge refused RIM’s request for a
temporary restraining order against the Sunnyvale, Calif. startup.
Judge Raymond J. Ikola of the Orange County Superior Court of California
denied the Canadian wireless device and software maker’s plea. To date, RIM
has sued Good four times in 2002, alleging everything from patent
infringement to unfair trade practices and antitrust crimes.
RIM issued the following statement about the decision to internetnews.com:
“Judge Ikola denied RIM’s request for immediate relief in the form of a
temporary restraining order for the stated reason that the harm to Good
Technology over the next few weeks substantially outweighed the harm RIM
would suffer over that time period,” the company said.
RIM continued: “However, the court granted RIM’s
request to shorten the normal pretrial discovery schedule and ruled that
Good Technology still must answer, on an expedited basis, RIM’s allegations
of misappropriation of RIM’s confidential, proprietary and trade secret
information, and that Good Technology is required to respond to a number of
formal evidentiary inquires between now and November 4, 2002.”
Good announced the thwarting of RIM with glee, claiming customer demand for its GoodLink
two-way wireless corporate e-mail and data system continues to grow. Good
said the number of companies choosing GoodLink has risen to nearly 400.
Good Technology CEO Danny Shader called it a case of customers “voting for
innovation over litigation.”
“Enterprise CIOs value GoodLink’s technological breakthroughs and lower cost
of ownership — and are not dissuaded by RIM’s lawsuit marketing campaign,”
Shader said in a public statement. Moreover, Shader said the attention RIM
has sparked with lawsuits has actually benefited Good’s business by raising
the less-than-a-year-old startup’s visibility.
Since opening its
doors last May, Good has sought to lure customers from RIM’s business by
offering its own service and software for RIM’s Blackberry devices — at a
cheaper price. In fact, the Web site features the current advertisement
“free is good” on its home page, offering a promotion in which businesses
may use GoodLink on up to 50 trial handhelds for 30 days to see if they like
the service.
