You've fallen into the classic apologists trap.
The simple existence of a god (as opposed to their supposed actions) is unfalsifiable.
An agnostic is someone who believes there is equal weight to each argument & simply hasn't chosen which to support.

/* poor attempt to claw back relevance */
I agree with the general sentiment that Trademarks are a simple method of quality control.
It helps verify the trusted developer - If I hear about a new fancy application & fancy giving it a go, I want to know I'm not unknowingly using some adulterated version which would provide undesired results.

As for many distributors strict control over their trademarks: they have no choice.
They have to prove an effort has been made to protect it, else they risk losing it as a generic term.

P: Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?
B: The same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to take over, the world!

As stated, it's simply because the barry modules have been supplied with your kernel.
Although oddly, I was under the impression that synchronising was still rather sketchy...

Cut'n'Paste from my wiki:

By default, a USB device can be supplied with up to 100mA without interaction from the kernel - the blackberry needs 500mA. For safety reasons, the devices need to communicate between each other before upping the amperage.
In Windows, this is accomplished with RIM's driver. In Linux, the above mentioned "Barry" has come to the rescue.
Just make sure you have the latest release & the libusb-dev library installed (available with apt). Once done, simply run:

bcharge

It will scan the available USB ports & negotiate with any attached Blackberries.

If you are unsure the amperage has been changed, run:

lsusb -v | less

...and verify "MaxPower" for the device labeled "Research In Motion" reads 500mA.

Rather than manually running this command whenever I plug in my Blackberry, I've edited my udev scripts to do it for me.