Judge says RIM owes $147 million in patent infringement damages
Late Friday, a Northern California District judge ruled that Canada-based Research in Motion infringed on a patent held by Mformation, a company that specializes in mobile device management. The patent in question relates to the software that runs on RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
RIM was ordered to pay an $8 royalty fee on the 18.4 million units that access the infringing software, meaning RIM owes $147 million in damages as of this weekend. This figure only included US-based devices sold to non-government employees, and Mformation’s attorney, Amar Thakur, told Bloomberg that the figure could double or triple if the company seeks damages on future sales outside the US and to government employees.
Mformation, which brought the suit against RIM back in 2008, claims they discussed details of their patented software with RIM in a licensing meeting. RIM declined to license Mformation’s product, and Mformation claims it found its patented systems in RIM’s software not long after.
