Many businesses bristle at the thought of intellectual property being whisked away from their premises via camera -- a fear that becomes ever more realistic as cameraphones jump from 1 to 2, 3, or 5 megapixels -- and perhaps no phone manufacturer is more in tune to the needs of those suits than RIM. Sure enough, the BlackBerry people have come to the table with a rather unusual patent application to address the problem. Rather than remove cameras entirely a la 8800 series, they're proposing the use of a removable key to prevent the camera from being used. Insert the key, the cam works like a champ; pull it, it goes dead. Because, you know, that obviously can't be circumvented in any way.

[Via CellPassion]

Looks like someone doesn't want their free-on-contract handset too badly! The California Supreme Court has thrown down its seal of approval to proceed with a lawsuit challenging a couple basic principles of carrier subsidies -- locked handsets and early termination fees -- with T-Mobile begin named as the lucky defendant this time around. The carrier had previously tried to get the case thrown out (as all good corporate lawyers should) by pointing out that its contracts require customer disputes to be arbitrated rather than taken to court, but the plaintiff's legal team successfully argued that the claims they were bringing against T-Mobile weren't arbitrable. So help us out here: what does a "win" for the public good constitute in this case, court-compelled unlocks and penalty-free contract terminations or the continued availability of heavily-subsidized handsets? Is the prorated ETF a good compromise?

Looks like Sprint sure has its share of headaches these days. After giving its customers a surprise (and a way out of their contracts) with its SMS rate hikes, the company's now being hit with a class action lawsuit over handset locking. The suit, filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, alleges that Sprint violated California law by locking its handsets to make it difficult for customers to switch carriers without buying a new phone, as well as by failing to disclose that the handsets were locked in the first place. If you have a California billing address for either a Sprint personal or business account and purchased a handset between August 28, 1999 and September 21, 2006, then you're covered by the lawsuit and don't have to do anything. However, if you want to be excluded from the lawsuit, and retain the right to sue Sprint for yourself (how dare they carrier-lock their phones!), you'll have to fill out an exclusion request form (available on the site linked below) and mail it postmarked no later than December 7th, 2006. But fair warning -- if you go that route, you'll be shut out of any money or lavish benefits that may be awarded as a result of the class action lawsuit.

[Thanks, Corey Flood]