Blackberry maker Research in Motion Ltd. is now charged and liable for $147.2 million in damages for infringing on patents held by Mformation Technologies Inc.
USAToday reported that Amar Thakur, a lawyer for Mformation, said Saturday that the verdict late Friday followed a three-week trial and a week of deliberations by an eight-person jury.
Mformation sued Research in Motion in October 2008, alleging that Canada-based RIM infringed on its 1999 invention for remotely managing wireless devices. Mformation’s software allows companies to remotely access employee cell phones to do software upgrades, change passwords or to wipe data from phones that have been stolen.
San Francisco jury ruled that Research in Motion should pay Mformation Technologies Inc. $8 for each of the 18.4 million Blackberrys that were connected to the Blackberry Enterprise Server, from the day the lawsuit was filed until the time of the trial. That’s a total of $147.2 million.
With sales and profits falling down, it is another critical setback for RIM which is now in struggle regaining its popularity. Blackberry 10 OS which was previously announced to be released by October faces another delay; code stability prompted RIM to move the release on Jan-Feb 2013.
