Patent Holder Seeks $360M from Apple for Patent Infringement
Apple joins several other companies being sued for allegedly infringing on a patent covering visual voicemail, according to a number of Internet news sites and TG Daily. Klausner Technologies–until now largely unknown–is the owner of two patents that cover elements in voicemail retrieval that utilize a visual interface. In addition to seeking $360M from Apple for their iPhone, Klausner has pending patent infringement suits for $300M each against Skype, Cablevision, and Comcast.
It appears there may some legitimacy to their claims, as AOL and Vonage both pay Klausner licensing fees for use of their patents in their online voicemail services. Time will tell, of course, but if Klausner is proven to be in the right in even one of the pending suits, they stand to make mammoth gains. And, if they are correct in their analysis, well they should.