$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.

Comments

Re:Still Obvious

[Dan Ost]

They reached a settlement with Vonage, if I remember correctly. That's not the same as getting a judgment in your favor that states the patent is valid.

Re:Still Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

This -- along with other posters' comments, to be fair -- goes to a common misconception about patents.

They aren't patenting the idea of doing X. The idea of doing X doesn't have to be new or non-obvious. They're patenting a method of doing X, or a device that does X, etc.

Yes, science fiction and spy movies have depicted technologies well in advance of anything "real" that would let you do what your favorite action hero can do. But when they wrote the movie -- get this -- they faked it. They didn't have a method or a device to do it, they just made it look like someone was doing it.

So years later someone comes up with a method or device. Sure, it's obvious that someone would want to do X -- they've been drooling over it in the movies forever, man -- but the question is, was the method or device obvious?

Also note that if someone else comes up with a different method of doing X, that would fall outside the scope of the first patent. This goes to inventors' efforts to make their patent as broad as possible (while still keeping them valid), but the point is, the capability the invention makes possible isn't what's covered by the patent.

I'm done.

[lorenlal]

The wheels of invention have officially come spinning off. Visual voicemail? Does this cover video voicemail? If not, who owns the patent to that... And when do those lawsuits come?

If you own a patent, and have no desire to do anything with it, you're not helping innovation, nor are you protecting anything. You slow progress, and you hurt the people who actually do want to change the world. I'm starting to believe in the idea that the US has about 90 years left. At this rate, we won't be able to develop anything without getting sued. Plus, China will continue to block our products, copy them, and sell them back to us.

I feel a little better now. OK.. for a more reasonable reaction... How about: If you patent something, and you don't have some product to market utilizing that patent in less than 5(? I'm flexible) years, it goes out the window. The patent also expires after 15(3xinitial?) years. By then, you should have improved your product, and you should own the market enough to protect your inventions. If you get swallowed by competition the day after the patent dies, you sucked at running the business. Sure this opens up the possibility of someone coming up with an idea, patenting it, and intentionally not making a product to stop future patenting of the idea.... But is that any worse than what's happening now?

Whosoever Uses the Sword...

[MOBE2001]

LOL PATENTS RULE LOL

Yeah. It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. IP laws are like swords that modern tech companies (Apple included) use to beat the rest of us into submission while they corner a market and reap mostly undeserved and exhorbitant profits. MSDOS was not worth billions of dollars, sorry. Whosoever uses the sword shall perish by the sword. In the end, IP laws will lead to violent wars, if they haven't already.

Re:Still Obvious

[Gr8Apes]

I skimmed over both patents, and they both relate to touch tone dialing and landline operation. I'm not sure how to re-apply that to "wireless" phones that work on digital systems.... The claims themselves are so broad that you would not be able to retrieve any information about your call without stepping on either patent. That would seem to make telephone testing equipment that pre-dates both of these patents by decades enough prior art to invalidate large portions of the patents, so much so, that there's not much left for the actual "patent".

Re:AT&T prior art from 1995

[cbunix23]

IANAL ... These two patents refer to using DTMF for random access to voice mail message. The iPhone doesn't use DTMF to access voice mail messages. Neither does Message Manager. How do these patents have any bearing on the iPhone ?

Re:Still Obvious

[Brickwall]

re: prior art

I worked for a distributor of VMX voicemail systems in the early 90's (they were later acquired by Octel). They had a working "visual voicemail" application at the time. You could open up a window on your PC, see a list of all the messages in your voicemail box, including (if the Caller ID was available) the number, the time and date the message was left, message length, whether the caller had flagged it urgent, and for older messages, whether you had returned it (available only on networked systems). If you had opted for our fax-mail system, the system would also show all your incoming fax messages.

So when does this Klausner dude claim to have patented this? TFA didn't say.

The nuclear rocket patent!

[argent]

Feynman's autobiography, where he describes how he became the primary patent holder for the nuclear rocket:

We discussed it back and forth - by this time we're in his office - and I
say, "There are so many ideas about nuclear energy that are so perfectly
obvious, that I'd be here all day telling you stuff."

"LIKE WHAT?"

"Nothin' to it!" I say. "Example: nuclear reactor... under
water... water goes in... steam goes out the other side... Pshshshsht --
it's a submarine. Or: nuclear reactor... air comes rushing in the front...
heated up by nuclear reaction... out the back it goes... Boom! Through the
air -- it's an airplane. Or: nuclear reactor... you have hydrogen go through
the thing... Zoom! -- it's a rocket. Or: nuclear reactor... only instead
of using ordinary uranium, you use enriched uranium, with beryllium oxide
at high temperature to make it more efficient... It's an electrical power
plant. There's a million ideas!" I said, as I went out the door. Nothing
happened.

About three months later, Smith calls me in the office and says, "Feynman,
the submarine has already been taken. But the other three are yours."

Re:AT&T prior art from 1995

[DustyShadow]

I am not familiar with this technology but am familiar with patent law. A quick search through the claims does not mention DTMF. I am assuming you read the "DTMF" that is in the abstract of the patent and in the specification (the part that comes before the claims). The claims are what define the invention and the limitations from the spec are not allowed to be read into the meanings of the claims. The descriptions with "DTMF" are most likely descriptions of possible uses of the invention.

It is a common mistake here on /. The abstract and spec DO NOT define the boundaries of the invention. Keep that in mind

Re:Still Obvious

[arminw]

......They had a working "visual voicemail" application at the time......

I had a visual voice mail on our SE/30 Mac in 1989. It was called DoveFax+ and it did faxes and voice mail. The callers were listed on the screen and could be randomly listened to. The system could also respond to various touch tones and give the caller specific recorded messages to these. It could also give specified recorded messages based on time, dates and days of the week. Callers could route calls to various voice mail boxes and we could listen to these remotely from any telephone. The system also could send and receive faxes.

So maybe Apple could show that that their computers could do this sort of thing quite a while ago, with the help of a third party interface between the phone and the computer.