News: Sony Ericsson finds a way to make money (or lose as legal fees)

Sony Ericsson was once fighting to be number one in mobile market share against Nokia. In the recent years with significant hardware growth, radical design changes and smartphone improvements the company has been finding it hard to maintain its market share.

Sony adopted Android for its XPERIA line of phones, but has not been received well because of its heavy customization and lack of upgrades to latest versions of Android. It has been tough to keep up with the constant upgrades of Android, but Sony has not made it easy for consumers to get the updates, even for outdated versions of the software. The company is rumored to launch PSP Phone that integrates Smartphone capabilities and PSP Gaming platform, but till it gets announced, it is only speculation.

In the meantime, the company has adopted a new way to make money. It has sued ClearWire over trademark infringements. When I read the article, I thought it was over patent issues or technical claims, but it was completely different. The lawsuit is because ClearWire is said to have a logo that is too familiar to the logo that Sony Ericsson has trademarked. From the lawsuit filing it looks like Sony Ericsson holds the trademark for different iterations of the sphere logos and claim that the logo for ClearWire is in violation of this tradermark and hence needs to be refrained from using that. The picture below is from the Engadget post that shows the two logos in comparison.

If only Sony Ericsson could use such creative ways in its design and strategy to gain back some of the lost market share in mobile market.

Author: Vinod

Source: Engadget