RIM loses trademark ruling over 'BBX'

After losing an early round in its trademark dispute with a small New Mexico software provider over use of BBX, Research In Motion has opted for new name for its new operating system.

U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson in Albuquerque granted a temporary restraining order today requested by Basis International that bars RIM from using the BBX mark at the DevCon conference in Singapore this week. In granting the request, the court concluded that "the BBX mark is identical to the mark which RIM is allegedly using to present its BBX product."

RIM representatives could not immediately be reached for comment, but the company said in a tweet that it had decided to rebrand the OS as BlackBerry 10. "BlackBerry 10 is the official name of the next generation platform that will power future BlackBerry smartphones!" the company announced.

RIM unveiled the BBX platform--which combines elements of its older BlackBerry operating system with its next-generation QNX software--at the company's developer conference in October. The company is hoping that BBX and its advanced capabilities can vault it back into the smartphone game, putting it on a more equal footing with the iPhone and Android smartphones. The name dispute, however, adds a wrinkle in RIM's attempt to make a comeback.

It's another hiccup for beleaguered RIM, a company that has suffered some significant setbacks over the past year. Over the past few months, the company has seen its stock plunge on concerns that it has lost its way in the smartphone market. The most recent issue was a global service outage that left some people without e-mail access for as many as three days.

CNET's Roger Cheng contributed to this report.