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.

ZTE Corporation has published a preliminary announcement of its results for January to June 2012.

The company says net profit is expected to be down between 60% and 80% compared with the same period last year, resulting in an anticipated profit figure of between 154 million Chinese Yuan Renminbi (£15.5 million) and 308 million RMB.

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.

Pointing and waving your hands are set to become widely-used ways of interacting with mobile phones, according to a new study from ABI Research.

It says the detection of vision-based gestures - physical movements identified by a camera or other sensors - will offer an additional input method for 600 million smartphones in 2017.

Vodafone Ireland and Three Ireland have agreed to set up a 50/50 joint venture company to share their physical network and site infrastructure across the country.

The deal, which has been rumoured for a few weeks, will see the two companies sharing around 2000 sites. As a result, Vodafone and Three will be able to reduce purchasing costs and potentially increase network coverage.