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$360M Patent Suit Over iPhone Voicemail
Stony Stevenson writes "Klausner Technologies said on Monday the company had filed a $360 million suit against Apple and AT&T over voicemail patents that Klausner claims the Apple iPhone infringes. New York-based Klausner said the lawsuit also names Comcast, Cablevision, and eBay's Skype as infringing its patent for 'visual voicemail.' The plaintiff seeks an additional $300 million from the three." Klausner has won on two previous occasions with this patent. The new suit was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, of course.
A cursory search for "Klausner Technologies" doesn't easily locate their corporate site, but is certainly a long laundry list of all their legal deeds.
Sigs cause cancer.
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Klausner Technologies Inc said on Monday the company had filed a US$360 million suit against Apple and AT&T over voicemail patents that Klausner claims the Apple iPhone infringes.
New York-based Klausner said the lawsuit also names Comcast, Cablevision Systems and eBay's Skype as infringing its patent for "visual voicemail." The plaintiff seeks an additional US$300 million from the three.
Klausner said in a statement that it filed the lawsuit in U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Texas. A copy of the filing was not yet available from the court.
The suit alleges asserts that the defendants' Internet-based voicemail products and services violate a Klausner patent. It seeks damages and future royalties estimated at $300 million, according to the press release.
The complaint involves U.S. patent 5,572,576, the same one at issue in a suit Klausner filed in 2006 against voice-over-Internet telephone service provider Vonage Holdings Corp. The two sides agreed to settle that earlier case in October 2007, according a spokesman for Klausner.
Vonage is now a licensee of Klausner's voicemail technology for its Vonage Voicemail Plus service, as is Time Warner Inc's AOL for its AOL Voicemail services, Klausner said.
A company spokeswoman said Apple's pioneering Newton personal digital assistant was covered under a licensing deal between Klausner and Japan's Sharp Corp, the manufacturer of the Newton, tied to Klausner's U.S. patent 4,117,542.
The suit naming Apple as a defendant targets the sleek visual voicemail application offered by Apple in its iPhone.
The company alleged in its statement that Cablevision's Optimum Voicemail, Comcast's Digital Voice Voicemail and eBay's Skype Voicemail violate Klausner's patent by allowing users to selectively retrieve and listen to voice messages via message inbox displays.
An Apple spokeswoman said the company does not comment on pending litigation.
EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said his company has not received the suit and would not comment until its lawyers have seen it.
"We haven't seen it," echoed a Cablevision spokesman, who declined to comment further.
The suit was filed for the plaintiff by the California law firm of Dovel & Luner in Texas. "We have litigated this patent successfully on two prior occasions," Greg Dovel of Dovel & Luner, said in the statement issued by Klausner.
IIRC, Vonage and AOL technically didn't "settle" the previous lawsuites; they paid Klausner licensing fees for use of the technology.
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
IANAL, however, the AT&T Intuity Audix Message Manager is a desktop product that gives you random access to your voice mail messages. The Message Manager user guide dated January 1995 is on the Avaya site at:
http://support.avaya.com/edoc/docs/intaudix/iammusr1.pdf
Go to page 25 "Listening to your messages" shows how to select any voice mail message displayed on your screen. This wasn't rocket science. I wasn't involved with that products development, but I don't recall any patents being issued for it. Even at the time it seemed like an obvious thing to do and should be to any practitioner in voice mail.
I worked for a courier company into the early 90's and sometimes was an on-call driver/dispatcher after hours. I had this honkin Motorola cell and pager. When customers ordered an after-hours delivery, I'd go into the voice mail via the phone line in my computer. A graphical box displayed calls and messages. I could pick them. I'd completely forgotten about that and I think I was the one who told my company's president about the software. I can't remember how or where I'd found it, but it worked out for a while.
I hope that is prior art that can be found. I don't have the disks. I WANT to think it might have been part of Killer Windows Utilities for Win 3.x (the big thick book with the tiger on the cover...), but that I cannot remember is frustrating. I DO still have my KWU book somewhere...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Looking at the patent US 5572576, it seems to have priority to May or March of 1992. It could be March 31st if the claims are completely supported by the continuation-in-part, but it definitely is supported to 5/12/92 (i.e. it's a continuation of a case that was filed on that date).
I got that with the Soundblaster card/CD-ROM kit sold by Borland in the late 80's/early 90's. Still have the machine here and the floppies.
The software showed a list of voice-mails, including time received. I don't know whether the caller ID worked since I used it in Europe. As said, the software lets selectively listen to the voice messages. It also features optionally multiple mailboxes (with a voice prompt to enter the mailbox number) and was shipped standard with the multimedia Soundblaster card and CDROM player sold by Borland.
We are a company that invents and receives patents - my own - and licenses them.
He invents patents, he doesn't patent inventions. Pure patent troll.