A US Court has ordered Reasearch In Motion to pay $8.87 million dollars in enhanced damages as part of its patent infingement case with NTP Software. In addition, RIM must also pay 80% of NTP's legal costs and a royalty of 8.6% for every BlackBerry sold (which could take $9 million per quarter away from RIM).

The legal wrangling started in November of 2001, when NTP sued RIM, claiming it had infringed on 8 patents the company held. The patents cover the use of radio frequency wireless communications in e-mail systems.

Although the decision against RIM is sizeable it could have been worse -- the judge had the option to raise the amount of the original damages to a total of $73 million if it was felt that the infringement on the patents was willful.

RIM said last year it would challenge and appeal the jury verdict. At the time, RIM said the decisions of trial courts are often reversed or modified on appeal, because of the technical complexity of the cases.