BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) continues to sail in rough waters, and has now received another blow. A jury in California has found RIM had infringed on a patent relating to the remote management of wireless devices. The patent in question is owned by Edison, New Jersey-based mobile device management technology provider Mformation Technologies.

Based on the jury's verdict, RIM is now to pay $147.2 million in damages to Mformation. The amount was based on past U.S. sales of BlackBerry smartphones, connected to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server from late 2008, when Mformation filed the lawsuit, through the trial date.

According to court documents, the jury decided RIM should pay Mformation $8 per unit for 18.4 million units sold. The amount in damages does not include future royalties, nor sales to the U.S. government or sales outside the United States, said Mformation.

Mformation filed the lawsuit against RIM before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing the BlackBerry maker of violating U.S. patent 6,970,917 titled "system and method for remote control and management of wireless devices." Mformation filed for the patent more than a decade ago, in 2001.

Sharp Blow for RIM

"Mformation created the mobile device management category in the late 1990s and was innovating in this area well before most of the market understood the fundamental importance of wireless mobility management," patent inventor and Mformation founder and CEO Rakesh Kushwaha said in a statement. "Our patents are a core part of our innovative products, and are fundamental to the methods used for device management in the market today. We ensure that our early innovations in device management were put through rigorous assessment by applying for patents on these innovations in the United States and abroad."

Following the jury's decision, RIM said it "is disappointed by the outcome and is evaluating all legal options." The trial judge still has to rule on certain legal issues that might impact the verdict, and RIM will await those decisions before potentially moving for an appeal, added the company.

While RIM questions the validity of the patent in question, an attorney for Mformation argued that the legal system allows small businesses to protect their patented inventions against such unauthorized use by large corporations.

The Bigger Picture

Should the judge's decision ultimately be upheld, however, it could have a catastrophic impact in the price of all future smartphones. The court dismissed some of Mformation's patent claims, and RIM is hoping to have the decision reversed on the grounds that the patent is obvious. According to patent expert Florian Mueller, we should all hope RIM succeeds to reverse this decision.

"The per-unit royalties that are rumored to be paid by Apple to Nokia and by certain Android device makers to Microsoft are comparable to what this California jury, possibly misguided by Mformation's shrewd lawyers and suboptimally-instructed by the court, awarded Mformation," said Mueller.

"But a license deal with a company like Microsoft or Nokia involves large numbers of relevant patents. Those kind of companies have tens of thousands of patents worldwide, and a licensee's products potentially implemented many hundreds (if not more) of them in a device."

Mueller further explained that applying the Mformation award to all of the other patents used widely across the industry could result in as much as $2,000 added to the cost of an average phone. "Jury verdicts don't set a precedent in the narrow sense of the word - only judges can do that. But if this jury verdict was affirmed by a judge as well as by the appeals court, that would be a terrible precedent," he added. "With all of the other smartphone-related cases pending, the consequences of this position on a 'reasonable royalty' would be catastrophic."