Apple Sued For $360 Million Over iPhone's Voicemail

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

Jason Mick
December 4, 2007 10:02 AM



Klausner Technologies seeks to milk money out of Apple, and in a seperate suit out of Comcast, Cablevision Systems, and eBay's Skype

What is lauded by many users as one of the iPhone's hottest features has just landed the electronics giant in some hot legal waters.

TIME magazine's invention of the year, just landed one of the bigger patent infringement suits of the year. Klausner Technologies has filed suit against Apple claiming the giant infringed on its patent for visual voicemail, and is seeking $360M in compensation and damages.

Klausner holds U.S. patents 5,572,576 and 5,283,818. The patents basically describe a system that allows for visual retrieval and sorting of voicemail via a display. The patents certainly sound like they would cover any visual voicemail setup, which likely is making Apple pretty nervous.

The plaintiff cites Apple's states that visual voicemail is "one of the greatest advances in the history of mankind ... without question" and yet is shorting the inventor on royalties.

Various other companies have already paid Klausner Technologies to license these patents, including Time Warner's AOL, which features the technology in its AOL Voicemail service. Vonage also pays to use the technology in its Voicemail Plus service.

Apple and AT&T refused to make immediate comments on the lawsuit.

The suit was filed by California law firm of Dovel & Luner in a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas. Klausner also attacked Comcast's Digital Voice Voicemail, Cablevision Systems' Optimum Voicemail, and Ebay's Skype, filing a separate lawsuit in the same court, on the same day. The second suit cites infringement on the same patents and seeks from the group of infringers a barely lighter $300M.

Klausner Technologies is an avid patent seeker, and was founded by Judah Klausner who invented and patented the PDA and electronic organizer. Judah owns the legendary U.S. patent 4,117,542 which covers these devices. He licensed his PDA patent under an OEM license to Apple so that Apple could develop its Newton PDA, which became the archetype for many PDAs to come. Klausner's new company has oft been compared to licenser NTP for its aggressive patent mongering -- though in Klausner's defense, he has singularly come up with a large portion of the ideas.

Now Apple, who once enjoyed happy times with Klausner celebrating Newtons in the 90s, faces its former friend as an enemy in court. Unfortunately for Apple, Klausner is just one legal enemy of its much maligned iPhone. Apple is facing class action suits for its iBricking and "monopolistic behavior", suits over the iPhones battery, an environmental lawsuit from activist organization Greenpeace, and complaints of iFires.

Hopefully Apple's astronomical iPhone sales and energetic growth can keep pace with its mounting legal bills.


DailyTech - Apple Sued For $360 Million Over iPhone's Voicemail

[marty7785]

This is exactly why Verizon Wireless said NO to the I-phone and know we have the Voyager which is the best phone EVER!!

[bobolito]

Oh really? wow! we've just gotten information not even Verizon execs know! Thanks!

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by marty7785

This is exactly why Verizon Wireless said NO to the I-phone and know we have the Voyager which is the best phone EVER!!

My guess was that this was never even considered for a rollout on CDMA as the first model they probably wanted one with a global market. Not to say that eventually there won't be a CDMA model, just not for first release.

-Jay

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

and now that it's public about the new 3G iPhone i'd say that obviously Apple is favoring GSM mostly because from the looks of it CDMA will phase out in the next decade or so..........Sprint has chosen WiMax..........Verizon has chosen LTE.................AT&T and T-Mobile have chosen UMTS/HSDPA

Apple making an investment in a CDMA iPhone would also be pointless until the carriers have completely opened up their networks because a key image of Apple is protability especially with their iPods........locked up CDMA networks could make this difficult

[RJB]

Originally Posted by SmArTeStChIlD421

and now that it's public about the new 3G iPhone i'd say that obviously Apple is favoring GSM mostly because from the looks of it CDMA will phase out in the next decade or so..........Sprint has chosen WiMax..........Verizon has chosen LTE.................AT&T and T-Mobile have chosen UMTS/HSDPA

So is wimax going to be for voice as well??? Or will sprint go to GMS stricly I thought wimax was for data purposes only.

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

well of course it will be for data only at first because the speeds of WiMax aren't predictable enough and VoIP is unstable in a WiMax environment.........but the hope is that eventualy it will be strong enough to support voice and data together..........

[RJB]

Originally Posted by SmArTeStChIlD421

well of course it will be for data only at first because the speeds of WiMax aren't predictable enough and VoIP is unstable in a WiMax environment.........but the hope is that eventualy it will be strong enough to support voice and data together..........

K well I didnt know this I guess I need to do my own reading on it as well.

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

yeah........the technology is very promising.........they have already done 4 way teleconferencing on it.......commercially set up in 4 metro areas.........but the amount of traffic regular voice data would entail is very high and the WiMax technology is not ready for that yet let alone the network that Sprint has as of now

[marty7785]

Actually Apple came straight to the best first Verizon. They shot it down because Verizon did not want the headache. I will admit the phone is sweet but the internet is slow and the battery life is miserable.

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

Originally Posted by marty7785

Actually Apple came straight to the best first Verizon. They shot it down because Verizon did not want the headache. I will admit the phone is sweet but the internet is slow and the battery life is miserable.

havent heard too much about the battery life..........is it really that bad???

[hillbilly44]

No the battery life isn't that bad. It's acutally OK for a 2G only device . Also the people suing Apple are known patent trolls. Marty is just being a Verizon homer

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

yeah i've heard that.........they patent something and they dont let it go but think about how the person who owns the patents is prolli making more money suing than setting up contracts to pay royalites.....lol.........but visual voicemail is used everywhere..........that person is gonna be sooooooo rich

[Simon5282]

Originally Posted by marty7785

........straight to the best first Verizon.......

Dude, your fanboyism is really annoying around here. Speak on facts, not your personal opinion. Yes, I know that they went to Verizon first, (source) but it doesn't make Verizon the best, or worst. Nobody takes fanboys serious around here. Find what works for you and then use it.

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

i concur.........i'm sure there is a board for opinions elsewhere on the site

[marty7785]

Hey no need for the attitude. Facts are Facts I hear them day in and day out. If you don't like it post on another board. Merry Christmas!!!

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

i like how the 7-poster is telling the 2,500+ poster to go post on other forums

[Simon5282]

Originally Posted by SmArTeStChIlD421

i like how the 7-poster is telling the 2,500+ poster to go post on other forums

BURN!!! I was thinking the same thing, but I have less than two hundred post. Comes much better from someone with 2,500+.

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

Originally Posted by Simon5282

BURN!!! I was thinking the same thing, but I have less than two hundred post. Comes much better from someone with 2,500+.

it's still more than 7 though

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by Simon5282

BURN!!! I was thinking the same thing, but I have less than two hundred post. Comes much better from someone with 2,500+.

I apologize to the mods in advance for keeping this thread OT, but I have to say that I found the n00b telling the seasoned member to post elsewhere utterly hilarious.

-Jay

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

yeah the sarcastic Merry Christmas wasn't very polite either

[marty7785]

Just because I dont have 2,500 post does not mean I do not know what I am talking about!