Last year, Rural Cellular bought a handful of Minnesota markets from Alltel. No big deal, right? A little money changes hands, a few subscribers move from one carrier to another. As part of the sale, Alltel agreed to continue to service the customers until they could be fully migrated to Rural's systems -- problem is, they may have "serviced" them a little too hard, if you catch our drift. A lawsuit brought on by Rural claims that, among other things, Alltel hustled the affected customers really hard during the transition period to get them to switch back to Alltel and offered them "slipshod" service on Rural's transitional network to help make that decision a little easier. By the time all was said and done, subscriber churn in the markets was a sky-high 13 percent, certainly suggesting that there was some buffoonery going on. The suit seeks millions in damages on the $48 million deal -- and with Verizon's acquisition of Rural currently going through the regulatory process, it certainly seems like the outcome could have an effect.

[Thanks, Droo]

If there's one thing Sprint doesn't need at the moment, we'd say that "a harder time getting cash" ranks high on the list. That's where big ol' number three finds itself at the moment, though, thanks to a credit downgrade by Standard & Poor's from "BBB-" to "BB," a move that puts its bonds squarely in junk territory. S&P has some harsh words for Sprint regarding the move, too, explaining that it went down thanks to its "assessment that Sprint Nextel's business risk profile is no longer supportive of an investment-grade rating given its deteriorating operating performance and lack of visibility in the wireless business." Lack of visibility in the wireless business, eh? Snap! The junkification of Sprint's debt coincides with the installment of a new CFO -- purely a coincidence, no doubt -- effective immediately.

But wait, the bad news isn't over. A workers' lawsuit filed in US District Court last week alleges that Sprint dumped pension plan cash into Sprint stock at a time when... well, let's just say that it wasn't exactly a solid investment. The suit names 12 Sprint board members as co-defendants and looks to recover the money lost as Sprint stock slid into the basement; furthermore, it's looking to garner class-action status, meaning that the carrier could potentially owe money to a whole boatload of employees if the plaintiffs win the whole shebang.

Read - Debt downgrade, new CFO
Read - Pension plan lawsuit

Sprint is allegedly pulling the old "aw shucks, I must've left my wallet at home" trick with Verizon, which claims that the former is failing to pay up about $10 million in back interconnection fees. The Delaware federal court filing says that Big Red "repeatedly attempted to resolve this dispute short of litigation," but hey, every so often these megacorporations run into a dispute that only the gavel can solve -- particularly when it involves eight figures worth of cold, hard cash. Sprint seems almost flippant about the whole thing, saying that the lawsuit doesn't surprise them since Verizon's running up against a statute of limitations and that they "remain hopeful" that the whole deal can be put to bed without those nasty court proceedings getting in the way. 'Course, if it was a simple matter of cutting a $10 million check, Sprint probably would've done it by now, so there must be some haggling going on behind the scenes.

Oh did you hear? Deutsche Telekom sent us a nastygram to stop using the color magenta here on Engadget Mobile. Good times. Letter and everything else posted over at Engadget Classic.

It's fairly commonplace for Chinese manufacturers to crank out clones of other popular wares, but apparently, things aren't brushed off as easily when the cloning gets done by a mega-corp like Toshiba. Granted, quite a bit is lost in translation here, but the long and short of it is that NTT DoCoMo and Fujitsu are suing Tosh for creating and selling its 821T -- which, as you can see above, looks an awful lot like Fujitsu's RakuRaku handset. Reportedly, the plaintiffs have demanded that Softbank Mobile withdraw the 821T from the market, but it seems there's quite a bit more back-and-forth left to go down before the dust settles on this one.

[Via GearFuse]

You know, we'll actually be a little sad when the endless legal battle between Nokia and Qualcomm actually comes to an end -- but until then, we're going to revel in all the dirt that comes out of having over a dozen simultaneous lawsuits going worldwide. Nokia now says that it owes Qualcomm nothing for its "early" CDMA patents, because it's dropped a cool billion dollars into license payments for them over the past 15 years and those deals have expired, so it's in the clear now. As you might expect, Qualcomm disagrees, and says that if Nokia wants to keep using its tech, it's got to pay up -- that's on top of the estimated $500 million a year Nokia's already paying Qualcomm for other patents. Guys, guys, why fight like this? What's a couple billion a year between friends? Video summary of the entire dispute after the break.

[Via MocoNews]

Mass unlocking and reselling of prepaid phones has been a pretty hot topic as of late, with AT&T taking its high-power legal team out of its holster recently and TracFone famously pursuing unlockers for some time now. In fact, according to the latest press release, TracFone has now filed a bewildering 28 lawsuits against a grand total of 80 defendants (including one disconcertingly called "Skynet"), all in an effort to stamp out the so-called "theft of subsidy" concept that rips off TracFone when its ultra-cheap phones are worked over and sold elsewhere. The legal angle seems to be working, too, with a $1 million judgment being handed down this week against a guy (who goes by no fewer than three names, it seems) in a Texas federal court.

[Via HotCellularPhone.com]

A four-pack of carriers is getting sued over the infringement of three 2007 patents that appear to center around the concept of picture caller ID -- but here's the best part, it's actually a different dude from a different company than the one that sued Apple. US Cellular, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Helio are all named in the suit, suggesting that either the remainder of major US carriers have already licensed the technology, or this so-called Intellect Wireless just has a very bizarre way of choosing its defendants. So here's our question: what picture caller ID technology was patented by some random company in 2007 that these guys could possibly be violating?

Suffering a rash of complaints after allegedly free ringtone downloads from shady random companies started showing up on AT&T subscribers' bills, the state of Florida stuck it to the carrier -- and they've agreed to pay up. AT&T and the state have jointly announced that as much as $10 million or more could ultimately be refunded to customers, depending on how many folks file claims, in addition to a $2.5 million fine payable to the state itself and $500,000 for educating consumers on "safe internet use." What's really funny about the whole deal is that Florida's attorney general has flat-out admitted that they went after AT&T only because the actual offenders -- the fly-by-night shops operating the free ringtone schemes -- were too difficult to round up and sue. The carrier has said that it has since made unauthorized charges more difficult to rack up, and is quick to point out that other carriers have been just as guilty of allowing the shady dealings; indeed, Florida says there are other investigations underway.

We remember when there was actually a glimmer of hope that the quarreling between these two may end -- man, was that a long time ago. Anyways, the International Trade Commission has reportedly upheld a judge's ruling made back in December which affirmed that Nokia did not violate Qualcomm patents. As expected, the latter firm expressed its utmost disappointment in the decision, and is already considering yet another appeal process. Then again, we may actually be a little sad if it didn't.

[Via PhoneScoop]

Phew, we were starting to worry we'd get through the week without someone suing Apple. This time it's a patent lawsuit by a Massachusetts man named Romek Figa, who claims to have patented a caller ID system infringed by the iPhone. Figa's patent, which was granted in 1990 and references two-line LCD screens and external caller ID equipment, describes a way to associate incoming numbers with stored contact names, and he's looking to halt sales of the iPhone and have Apple pony up some hefty damages and license his patent, which the company has thus far declined to do. We wonder why. We also wonder why Figa hasn't sued Nokia, Microsoft, HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson, since, you know, all those companies make phones with caller ID as well, but maybe that's coming next -- he could probably end up simply owning Moto's flailing phone division, if his lawyers play their cards right.

Update: According to statements by Figa's attorneys this morning, Moto, Nokia, and Samsung have already licensed the patent, but Apple "refused to take a license on the terms offered." Interesting -- but they also said Figa sent his demand letter directly to Steve Jobs, which seems like the least efficient way possible of handling this deal.

[Via AppleInsider]

Disclaimer: Nilay is a lawyer, but he's not your lawyer, and none of this is legal advice or analysis.

Garmin probably thought getting into the mobile phone game would just be smooth sailing, but it looks like they've made a deadly miscalculation. Okay, that might be over-dramatizing the situation, but the PND-maker is facing a new lawsuit over its upcoming 3G wonder-device, the Nuvifone. Apparently, internet telephone provider Nuvio Corp. feels that Garmin has crossed trademark boundaries just a smidge, alleging the nav company is stepping all over its good name. "Our customers commonly refer to our service as the Nuvio phone," said Jason P. Talley, the company's CEO. Not only is the provider calling for a cease-and-desist on the use of "Nuvifone," but it also wants kickbacks for past infringement, and termination of the word "Nuvi" on any device made by Garmin. Garmin spokesman Ted Gartner says the company has been using the Nuvi name since early 2006 in North America, and earlier in Europe. He went on to add that they don't discuss pending litigation -- though we understand to friends and family he was like, "Pfft, whatever."

There's no love lost between Nokia and Qualcomm -- the two companies have been suing each other willy-nilly for a year and half now -- but it looks like they've agreed to stop the vicious procedural and technical legal maneuvering that's marked the dispute so far and make a go at actually resolving some issues. That's right, after filing nearly a dozen lawsuits and engaging in an endless war of paperwork, the two companies have agreed to sit down with their arbitrator and figure out who owes who how much, and who gets the kids patent licensing rights. Still, it's not over over -- only two cases are being consolidated before the arbitrator, and although Nokia and Qualcomm say they've agreed to postpone the other outstanding cases and hold off on filing any more lawsuits, we'd say there's just too much bad blood here for things to end this easily.

We're not sure Motorola's turnaround strategy should involve picking legal fights with an undisputed market leader, but now that CEO Greg Brown's personally in charge, it looks like the gloves are off -- Moto's just filed a lawsuit claiming that RIM infringed on seven of its patents in various BlackBerry 8000-series devices and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. The move comes as a response to a patent suit filed by RIM on Saturday, which claims that Motorola infringed several of its patents, demanded "exorbitant" royalties for Moto patents covering wireless communications, and refused to pay royalties on RIM patents. We'd say this one will drag on forever and then settle (like a certain other RIM patent case), but with Motorola's fortunes fading fast and no suitors in the wings, this just may prove to be one burden too many.

Disclaimer: Nilay's a lawyer, but he's not your lawyer, and this post isn't meant to be legal advice or analysis.