In an infringement of patents held by Mformation Technologies Inc., Blackberry maker Research In Motion Ltd. Has been found liable for damages worth $147.2 million by a San Francisco federal jury. A lawyer for Mformation, Amar Thakur said, the verdict came out late Friday, followed by a three-week trial and a week's deliberations by an eight-person jury.

Giving out more information about the lawsuit, Thakur said, The Edison sued Research In Motion in October 2008, claiming that Canada's Research In Motion infringed on its 1999 invention for remotely managing wireless devices. Software provided by Mformation allows companies to remotely access employee cell phones to change passwords; software updates or wipe data from stolen phones. According to the ruling of the jury, Research In Motion should pay his client $8 for each of the 18.4 million BlackBerrys that were connected to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, starting from the day the lawsuit was filed until the time of the trial, for a total of $147.2 million.

He software in question is the key business of Mformation, a private firm with several hundred employees. The patent was filed in 2001 and issued in 2005, added Thakur.