BlackBerry-maker
Research In Motion Ltd.
(
RIMM
) finally has something to cheer for as the Canadian company
received favorable ruling from the U.S. District Court for a patent
infringement case involving New Jersey-based technology firm
Mformation Technologies.
It all began in 2008, when Mformation Technologies, known for
providing mobile device management software solutions to its
clients, took Research In Motion to U.S. District Court in Northern
California for infringing its patents.
Mformation asserted that Research In Motion used its unlicensed
technology in BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which the Waterloo,
Ontario-based handset manufacturer had picked up during a meeting
related to this technology with Mformation.
Research In Motion was found guilty by the court in July and was
asked to pay a royalty of $8 for each of its 18.4 million units,
hence amounting to a total of $147.2 million.
However, lack of proper evidence against Research In Motion has
earned the company an overturning of last month's verdict by the
U.S. District Court.
Recently, Research In Motion Ltd. reported poor financial
results for the first quarter of fiscal 2013 where both its top and
bottom lines missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Moreover, its
smartphone and Playbook tablet device sales drastically fell by
40.9% and 48%, respectively as compared with the corresponding
quarter last year.
Stiff competition from
Apple Inc
'.s (
AAPL
) iPhones and
Google Inc
'.s (
GOOG
) Android-based devices has resulted in grim results. The company
has also delayed the launch of its upcoming BlackBerry 10-based
smartphones, and followed it with a job cut of at least 5,000
employees. Taking into consideration all these headwinds, we
believe the company's future looks bleak.
Research In Motion shares currently retain a Zacks #4 Rank,
which translates into a short-term Sell rating. Longer-term, we are
maintaining our Neutral recommendation on the stock.
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