Remember that Visual Voicemail patent debacle from a couple years ago? Well, the plaintiff in those lawsuits is at it again with another Visual Voicemail lawsuit. This time, the legal battle is aimed in HTC’s direction, at a time when the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer is dealing with lawsuits over 20 alleged Apple patents. Klausner Technologies, the company that practically sued the pants off of any company that even uttered the words “visual voicemail,” is suing HTC over its use of Visual Voicemail features in the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G.
Klausner is no stranger to intellectual property lawsuits. If you’ll recall, the patent holding firm fired out court summons after court summons to the likes of Apple, AT&T, Verizon, LG, Sprint, and Google. What’s more, Klausner managed to settle every single one of those lawsuits with Visual Voicemail licensing deals. That sets a precedent that will likely work against HTC’s case in this matter – a fact that the plaintiff mentions in their complaint against HTC.
The last thing HTC needs right now is another lawsuit. Especially one that’s going to cost them money for each handset that they make that uses Visual Voicemail. We’ll probably see this case settled before year’s end, giving the company time to focus its legal resources on fending off iPhone-maker Apple.
[Via: TechCrunch]