In another financial blow that the company can’t afford, RIM has been found guilty of patent infringement and has been forced to pay out $147,2 million in damages.

Last week we brought you news of Research In Motion’s (RIM) terrible past quarter which revealed that the company was “literally hemorrhaging money and sales figures.” Unfortunately for the BlackBerry manufacturer, things have just gotten a little bit worse following the verdict of a patent infringement case.

The case was initially opened in 2008 by Mformation, a maker of mobile-device management software. They claimed that RIM took information disclosed in licensing discussions and modified their renowned BlackBerry Enterprise Server software, which allows companies to remotely manages their workers’ BlackBerry devices, to include two patent systems.

The company claimed it had disclosed details of the technology to RIM during licensing discussions. After declining to take a license, the BlackBerry maker modified its software to include the patented systems, Mformation said in its complaint. RIM denied wrongdoing and said the patents were invalid, according to court filings.

The jury didn’t see it RIM’s way and, following a three-week trial, found that the company had to pay $8 for each of the 18,4 millions devices sold in the US, which added up to $147,2 million.

[T]he jury’s damage award is for royalties on past sales of devices to American customers excluding those in the government. Damages for future sales outside the United States and for government customers could increase the amount RIM must pay by two to three times, Mr. Thakur [a lawyer for Mformation] said in an interview after the verdict.

The costly infringement is only the latest is a dreadful series of setbacks which have seen the once powerful company announce the layoff of a third of its workforce and postpone the launch of its BlackBerry 10 to next year, not to mention its large decline in revenue.

[Source: GigaOM, NYT]