A company that holds patents relating to a 'visual voicemail' system is suing
Apple and a host of telecoms companies for hundreds of millions of dollars.
The lawsuit was filed by Klausner Technologies in the US Court for the Eastern District of Texas, and asks for $360m (AUD$413m) from Apple and
AT&T.
The suit also names
Skype,
Comcast and
Cablevision Systems as having breached US Patents
5,572,576 and
5,283,818 and asks for $300m (AUD$345m) in damages from each company.
New York-based Klausner Technologies claims that the patent infringements concern internet voicemail services.
"The iPhone violates Klausner's intellectual property rights by allowing the user to selectively retrieve voice messages via the iPhone's inbox display," said the company in an official statement.
Klausner Technologies sued
AOL for US$200m (AUD$230m) in 2005 over its voice platform technology, eventually settling the case and licensing it to AOL.
Vonage settled a similar case in October this year over its Voicemail Plus, when Klausner granted Vonage a patent license for an undisclosed sum.
"We have litigated this patent successfully on two prior occasions," said Greg Dovel, counsel for Klausner Technologies at law firm
Dovel & Luner.
"With the signing of each new licensee, we continue to receive further confirmation of the strength of our visual voicemail patents."
