While everyone is busy shopping or just enjoying the start of the holiday season, let’s take a quick look at what happened in the mobile scene this week.

On Monday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority was supposed to start censoring text messages but by evening, the PTA decided to postpone their plan.  The PTA claimed that the 1600 plus list of banned words and phrases wasn’t suppose to go public as they just wanted to test if it was possible to censor those words.

Apple, on the other hand, may stand to lose $2.7 billion in a lawsuit filed by Motorola Mobility in a German court for allegedly infringing Motorola patents and used it in their MobileMe service and now the iCloud.

And rumors for the iPhone 5 have resurfaced (well, they actually never went away), as the government looks into making Apple devices more secured for use by government employees.   Before, RIM’s devices were government approved but more people prefer to use either their iOS or Android devices.  Additionally, Apple officially won the case filed by HTC for allegedly infringing their patents but the International Trade Commission ended the investigation, handed its final decision in favor of Apple though the investigation was scheduled to end on February 2012.

Android & RIM on worldwide tour

On the Android side of things, the Google-Samsung offspring, the Galaxy Nexus handset, was met by a wave of disappointed consumers who reported that their devices had a volume bug.  It seems to only affect users on 2G networks, but the device works well is 3G connection is used.  UK consumers are also bummed that the Galaxy Nexus doesn’t have Adobe Flash support at the moment, though Adobe and Google promise a Flash update for the device.   Samsung released a new ad that teases Apple fans, who would wait longs hours in line just to purchase their product, with the Galaxy SII.

Research in Motion is clearly suffering as sales of BlackBerry devices continue to decline.  At the moment, RIM is trying to hang on to the mobile market dominated by Apple and Android devices, but with new devices coming from Nokia and other manufacturers eyeing to use Windows OS on their devices, RIM’s BlackBerry may soon fade into the background.  But if BlackBerry devices aren’t given much attention in the Western side, people from the Eastern hemisphere, particularly in Indonesia, went crazy when the BlackBerry Bold 970 launched.  Indonesians were so excited to get their hands on the new device that it literally caused physical injuries.

Facebook is said to be launching their own smartphone, HTC-made and Android-packed, in the next 12-18 months.  The Facebook Phone project a.k.a. Buffy may be a bit too late in the mobile game if they take too long to release the device.

Nokia, AT&T’s downfall

Nokia announced that they will be cutting 23% of their workforce as they aim to reclaim their spot in the mobile arena.  Nokia currently has 74,000 employees and will be laying off almost 17,000 people until 2013.

And AT&T pulled their application for the T-Mobile acquisition as FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski plans to push for an administrative hearing to deter the deal.  AT&T is also prepping $4 billion as a break-up fee for T-Mobile.