Mark Bridge writes:

BlackBerry and bad news seem inextricably linked at the moment. RIM’s CEO admits he’s “not satisfied” with recent company performance and warns of challenging times ahead... and then the company is hit by a $147 million dollar damages order for patent infringement.

Mind you, Research In Motion wasn’t the only mobile company bringing disappointment into the mainstream news last week.

Research In Motion has been ordered to pay $147.2 million dollars in damages for infringing a mobile device management patent held by Mformation Technologies.

A jury decided that RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server infringed the patent, which enables companies to update devices ‘over the air’, and awarded damages based on sales of BES-connected BlackBerry smartphones in the USA from late 2008. The award was calculated on sales of 18.4 million handsets and a royalty of $8 per device.

At the Annual General Meeting of Research In Motion today, CEO Thorsten Heins has admitted he’s “not satisfied” with the way the company has performed recently. However, he remains positive despite the likelihood of several challenging quarters ahead.

Mr Heins said the forthcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system, which is now scheduled to appear on new devices early next year, would enable RIM to offer LTE connectivity and compete with rival operating systems.

More than three billion applications have been downloaded from BlackBerry App World since it launched in 2009.

That’s an average of over 2.5 million downloads to smartphones and tablets each day, although usage has increased significantly during the past three years.

This week's edition of The Fonecast takes a look at the new Google Nexus 7 tablet, wonders what's next for RIM and awaits the arrival of the forthcoming Firefox mobile platform.

There's also talk about HTC's partnership with Pioneer, Vodafone's European reorganisation, the new BT WiFi brand, Ofcom complaints, tariff problems and international roaming.