The Jared Company – A Copycat wants to sue other Copycats over Copying

This is probably one of the greatest stories in the BlackBerry developer world ever!

I. BlackBerry Flashlight Applications

Let’s start at the beginning. All the fuzz is about so called flashlight applications for BlackBerry smartphones. As most of you might know, there are plenty of such “flashlight” apps for BlackBerry for sale. Here is a list of them:

• Video Flashlight II and Emergency Lights by LSphone
• got’cha LIGHT (Uses Camera Light) by loopSpin, Inc.
• Light the Way Adjustable Flashlight by NearBox Software
• VideoLight – LED Camera Flashlight by Virtualviews.com
• BAKLight (Free Flashlight) by BAK2u Pte Ltd
• Ever Light II uses Flashlight by MMMOOO
• Flashlight Pro – Free Trial by S4BB Limited
• Radical Flashlight by Radical Photography and Graphic Arts
• FlashLight OneTouch by Adorno
• Brio Camera Light by Brio Mobile
• FlashOn by Shao
• One Touch Flashlight (Uses Camera Light) by The Jared Company

BlackBerryInsight received a copy of one of these developers who received a letter on behalf of The Jared Company (last link above). In this letter a person called “Michael Ka.” claims to be the “Barrister & Solicitor” of The Jared Company. He also claims that The Jared Company applied for a patent for the process of their One-Touch-Flashlight “invention” for BlackBerry smartphones. Besides my personal opinion that such a thing should not be possible to patent, The Jared Company claims that they have applied for such a patent. Even a patent number of the “U.S. Patent and Trademark Office” is stated in the email. Based on this information that so called “legal representative” demands the developer to stop selling their flashlight application on BlackBerry App World, MobiHand and other sites.

Let’s face it guys: It is obvious that everyone here has copied functionality from everyone else. All these flashlight applications have similar functionality but do still have quite some differences. E.g. some of them have the “one-touch” technology (it hurts and I get goose bumps when I use the word ‘technology’ in this context), others have morse features, others something else and so on. You get the idea. However, it is basically something good for us users as we can check out all the different programs and just use the best one

Anyway, there are many signs that the accusations made by The Jared Company are not even real. It seems to be just some sneaky, slimy and even fraudulent way to scare these BlackBerry developers off and make them stop selling their flashlight applications. (Just a personal opinion – no offense) Let us take a look on what exactly came in.

II. The Threatening EMail

For privacy reasons, the actual flashlight product name was replaced with “–ONE OF THE FLASHLIGHT APPS–” as well as the vendor’s name or representative with “–A FLASHLIGHT VENDOR–”. Note: BlackBerryInsight received this information anonymously and therefore, is not able to reveal the source. Even if we would know the source we respect the privacy of our tipsters. Send us your insight information now!

From: Michael Ka. [michael.XXXXX@telus.net]
Subject: –ONE OF THE FLASHLIGHT APPS–
Date: 20 February 2010
To: xxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx

Attention: –A FLASHLIGHT VENDOR–

Re: –ONE OF THE FLASHLIGHT APPS–

Hello Mr. –A FLASHLIGHT VENDOR–,

I am lawyer in Vancouver and I am retained by The Jared Company, the creators of the Blackberry application One Touch Flashlight (Uses Camera Light). I am writing regarding your Blackberry application –ONE OF THE FLASHLIGHT APPS–. The Jared Company was the first to bring this idea to market in a Blackberry application, and after analyzing the –ONE OF THE FLASHLIGHT APPS–, it is clear your application has copied our client’s invention.

I am writing to advise you that The Jared Company has a patent pending with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for their invention of using the video camera light as a one touch flashlight and as demonstrated in their product One Touch Flashlight (Uses Camera Light). The patent pending number for their invention is 61/254,690. Your product, –ONE OF THE FLASHLIGHT APPS–, may infringe on our client’s pending patent, and if so, we will seek to recover from you the damages our client may suffer as a result of your application, beginning from today’s date onwards, as you have now received written notice of our client’s rights.

Further, we remind you that your contracts with RIM (Blackberry Appworld) and all other distributor such as Mobihand, include clauses that you represent and warrant that you are not infringing on any other party’s intellectual property (such as copyright, trademarks and patents) and that you will indemnify the distributor if you are in breach of those representations. We will be notifying the distributors of this matter.

We request that you immediately cease distribution of your application the –ONE OF THE FLASHLIGHT APPS–, failure to do so may result in legal action being commenced against you, without any further notice to you.

Yours truly,

Michael Ka.
Barrister & Solicitor

9 Tamath Crescent
Vancouver, B.C.
V6N 2C8

(P) (604) 910 -1949
(F) (604) 267-0009
michael.XXXXX@telus.net

I purposely left the sender’s credentials unchanged, so you can follow my arguments below. The sender’s family name was removed from this quote.

III. Signs of Fraudulent Accusation and Scamming

There are many signs that this is a scam. Here is the list:

1. EMail: Usually, these kinds of letters are sent either by FAX or snail mail; mostly both. In most countries these are the channels that are legally binding. Everyone can send and fake an email. Especially when it is not digitally signed.
2. EMail address: Which solicitor has an “@telus.net” email address?
3. Website: Which solicitor does not have a website?
4. Address: A Google Maps search shows a residential area. Interesting…
5. Solicitor’s Office: It seems Mr. Ka. is not working for any solicitor’s office. At least there is none stated in the email. Very suspicious.
6. Copyrights: The sender writes about copyright and trademarks, but himself is not complying to it. “BlackBerry” for example should be written with two capital “B”s and it must also be mentioned that this is a registered trademark of RIM (like the notice you see at the bottom of this page). The author therefore, doesn’t seem to have any experience in the legal field.
7. US Patent Number: The mentioned patent number “61/254,690″ cannot be found in the official USPTO patent search. Check it out here. The same result you get at the Google Patent Search.
8. Jared Website: A Whois check of the Jared website reveals that they hide their identity by using proxy services. Which legitimate company is doing this? (BlackBerryInsight is doing this too because we reveal insight information and need to protect ourself; we do not sell any product to customers)
9. Author’s name: A Google search of the author’s name brings up some nice results. Thanks to social networks such as LinkedIn, it reveals that there is indeed a “Michael Ka.” working at The Jared Company as COO. What a coincidence…

IV. Concluding the Signs

First of all, the fact that the patent number is not found in the patent search can indicate that is no such patent pending and no application has been done for that. If this is the case the “Patent Pending” phrase is used fraudulently and this can be used against that person / company.

“Fraudulent use of the patent pending warning is prohibited by the law of many countries and inventors should be cautious when marking products or methods that may arguably not be covered by any pending patent application.” Source: Patent Pending Article on Wikipedia

The obvious hints regarding the email’s author in combination with the not existing patent number lets me believe that this email is a big scam. There is no real solicitor’s office mentioned, the stated address is in a residential area, no corporate email address is shown, and so on. The most interesting fact here is: Michael Ka. is actually the COO of The Jared Company. It might be a coincidence, but that’s very unlikely, I guess. The BlackBerry writing mistake (second “B” in BlackBerry is not capitalized) also appears on The Jared Company website. Must be coincidence too. Like I said before: it smells like scam.

If this is how The Jared Company is doing business then I wouldn’t even get an application from them if I was normal user/customer. Who knows, perhaps the CFO is a solicitor too and might sue me for using their application name in a support email I sent to them when I complained about them copying other products with their BerryJoose application. They obviously copied from MemoryBooster, MemoryUp, MemoryPro, you name it! By the way: the BerryJoose application name violates RIM’s BlackBerry branding guidelines – and this is for real.

If you are developer and received the same email from Mr. Ka., please leave a comment below. The BlackBerry community should not accept such discrediting behavior.

Notice: All suggestions and assessments given here are personal opinions and shall not be treated as legal advice. This article is meant for educational purposes and is supposed to show how the world of BlackBerry developers works inside. Besides the actual developing part. Our insight information in this case shall shed some light on the dark passages some developers are taking.

Update 2010-02-25: I received an email from Mr. Ka. regarding this article, the article’s comments, his privacy right and potential defamation. Though I honestly believe I am not required to, I want to show good faith and removed his name from my post as well as his email address.

Continue reading:

• Mr. Ka.’s response and my reaction