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Sprint proves money can solve problems, buys iPCS to settle litigation

by Darren Murph posted Oct 19th 2009 @ 1:48PM

Considering Sprint's financial position and the overall credit market, we're not exactly sure where the carrier managed to pick up $831 million, which it promptly used to acquire affiliate iPCS and take on $405 million of net debt. If you'll recall, the aforesaid youngin' was worrying papa way back in May of 2008, and it seems that Sprint has finally had enough of this whole "litigation" thing. The acquisition puts all of the court battling to rest (or at least it's expected to), enabling the operator to stop divesting its iDEN network in select iPCS markets. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure buys a good muzzle.

[Via Reuters]

Broadcom and Qualcomm agree to stop suing one another, but not to stop hating

by Darren Murph posted Apr 26th 2009 @ 10:59PM

Truthfully, we're having a hard time coming to grips with this. For as long as we wished that these two would stop bickering, it's actually tough to swallow the fact that we'll never again be able to write about "yet another lawsuit" between Qualcomm and Broadcom (in theory, anyway). After nearly three full years of fighting with pencils, papers and soulless words, the courtroom throwdowns are finally ceasing. In a shocking development, the two rivals have entered into a settlement and multi-year patent agreement that will "result in the dismissal with prejudice of all litigation between the companies, including all patent infringement claims in the International Trade Commission and US District Court in Santa Ana, as well as the withdrawal by Broadcom of its complaints to the European Commission and the Korea Fair Trade Commission." The exact terms of the deal are posted after the break, though you should know that Qualcomm will have to shell out $891 million in cash (ouch!) over the next four years. The lawyers may be out of work, but you can rest assured that there's no shortage of abhorrence between these frenemies.

Continue reading Broadcom and Qualcomm agree to stop suing one another, but not to stop hating

Samsung settles up with InterDigital in long-running patent infringement case

by Darren Murph posted Nov 25th 2008 @ 9:29AM

At last, it's over. InterDigital, which is best known for its episodes in the courtroom with Samsung and Nokia, has finally reached an agreement with the former firm. The two have been at each other's throats since April of last year regarding patents allegedly used in some of Sammy's more sophisticated phones. The decision was reached just a day before the US International Trade Commission was set to rule on whether to recommend barring affected Samsung imports altogether, which we can assure you was not at all coincidental. There's been no public disclosure of settlement value, though one analyst at Hilliard Lyons estimates that Samsung will be coughing up $400 to $500 million over the next five years to make this problem go away. Talk about a recurring nightmare.

Sprint now facing $1.2 billion class-action suit over early termination fees

by Darren Murph posted Nov 6th 2008 @ 10:10PM

We told you it wasn't over, and now, that once "manageable" $73 million payment could possibly balloon to upwards of $1.2 billion. As predicted, the prior suit -- which was held in a California state court -- has led to a far reaching class-action lawsuit that could "potentially cost the company as much as $1.2 billion." The suit alleges that the $150 to $200 fees violated the Federal Communications Act and laws in every state of the country, and when summed from 1999 to 2008, they total a magical $1.2 billion. Things aren't looking great for Sprint on this one either, as lawyer Scott Bursor is running the show. Who's he? Just a guy who was involved in getting Verizon to fork over $21 million for the same thing earlier this year.

[Via textually]

Verizon caves, settles Klausner visual voicemail suit by signing license

by Darren Murph posted Oct 25th 2008 @ 7:07AM

We figured back in August that Verizon (and LG) would eventually be forced to pay up in order to keep visual voicemail on its handsets, and sure enough, that's exactly what has gone down with the former company. Verizon and Klausner Technologies have quickly settled outstanding patent litigation by way of Verizon entering into a patent license agreement for using visual voicemail. To date, Verizon is the 15th company to ink such an agreement, ensuring that the suits at Klausner can remain firmly parked in Grand Cayman, Aruba, Maui or any other blissful location they please for the remainder of their Earthly lives. As for LG? We'd say the outcome is all but imminent at this point.

[Via phonescoop, image courtesy of MyDigitalLife]

US Appeals court sez Qualcomm infringed on two Broadcom patents

by Darren Murph posted Sep 24th 2008 @ 3:39PM

We could start off by telling you just how much this decision will hurt Qualcomm and just how celebratory the mood must be at Broadcom, but instead, we'll key you in on this quote: "The appeals court also rejected Qualcomm's request for a new trial." At long last, we may have actually heard the end of what has seemed like a never-ending battle between the aforementioned parties. Today, a US Appeals court upheld an earlier ruling that Qualcomm had indeed infringed upon two Broadcom patents while ruling that a third patent in question was invalid. The ruling is obviously a huge win for Broadcom, who will soon be bathing in Benjamins as Qualcomm is forced to pay mandatory royalties for the chips it sells during the "sunset period" ending January 31, 2009.

[Via Reuters]

Timberland and GSI cough up $7 million to settle text spam lawsuit

by Darren Murph posted Sep 23rd 2008 @ 9:15AM

Not that we haven't seen victories over SMS spammers before, but this one is sure catching a lot of attention due to the names attached. GSI Commerce and Timberland have reportedly agreed to "establish a fund of up to $7 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought against them for allegedly sending unsolicited text messages to wireless telephone users in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act." The settlement has already received preliminary approval from a judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, and while the aforementioned firms vehemently deny any wrongdoing, they concede that taking this to court would be "burdensome, protracted and expensive." More expensive than $7 million? Is that guilt we smell, or what?

[Via mocoNews]

Supreme Court rejects T-Mobile appeal over contracts

by Darren Murph posted May 29th 2008 @ 4:34PM

Just a day after hearing that T-Mobile lost its magenta suit against Telia, more bad news on the legal front has been handed down to the carrier. Just this week, the Supreme Court decided to reject T-Mob's appeal in a trifecta of cases "involving the legal remedies available in millions of cellphone contracts." Each case centered around the same issue: "whether state laws that limit the ability of companies to prohibit consumers from banding together to pursue class action lawsuits are preempted by federal law." In layman's terms, T-Mobile had attempted to ban class actions and require its customers to resolve any gripes via arbitration, which clearly didn't pan out so well. Hit the read link to read the rest, Mr. 1L.

[Via PhoneScoop]

Toshiba sued for cloning Fujitsu's RakuRaku handset

by Darren Murph posted Mar 17th 2008 @ 3:07PM

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]

Lawsuit could force Verizon to pay up for "illegal ETFs"

by Darren Murph posted Jan 30th 2008 @ 3:09AM

Simmer down, Verizon subscribers. A trial date has yet to be set, but apparently, an arbitrator has "certified a huge class action against Verizon Wireless" that could cost it nearly $1 billion in refunds of early termination fees. Reportedly, this case marks the "largest class ever certified in arbitration, with approximately 70 million members of the subscriber class." Essentially, the lawsuit is attempting to extract refunds for hordes of VZW customers that were charged with "illegal ETFs," and while a company spokesperson unsurprisingly declined comment, we're hearing that the trial could get going as early as mid-2008. That's two, who's next?

[Image courtesy of Spusa]

City of Chicago sued for illegally ticketing in-car yappers

by Darren Murph posted Dec 21st 2007 @ 7:22PM

So, you've got an outstanding ticket from talking while behind the wheel in Chicago, do you? Meet attorney Blake Horwitz, who is now likely to be the best friend you don't even know. Reportedly, Mr. Horwitz is suing the city and claiming that arrests of citizens caught driving and talking were in fact illegal, and furthermore, he's demanding that Chicago "dismiss any outstanding tickets and refund almost $2 million in fines collected since 2005." Apparently, the actual law that prevents users from yapping and motoring requires that the city erect signs that instruct drivers not to converse while driving, yet such signs have purportedly not been posted across Chi-town. The devil's in the details, we suppose.

[Image courtesy of ImportTuner]

ITC dashes Qualcomm's hopes, rules in favor of Nokia

by Darren Murph posted Dec 12th 2007 @ 9:55PM

No, this isn't some horrific dream stuck on repeat. The legal quarrels between Nokia and Qualcomm are actually still ongoing, and while a US International Trade Commission judge has indeed issued an initial determination that favors Nokia, you can bet your bottom dollar that Qualcomm will be "petitioning the commission for a review." Nevertheless, judge Paul Luckern reportedly "found no infringement or violation by Nokia of the three asserted Qualcomm patents," which consequently led Nokia's CFO to proclaim that this was simply "another failed attempt by Qualcomm to mislead both Nokia and the telecommunications industry." Of course, we wouldn't recommend striking this battle off as complete -- after all, the determination now has to be forwarded on to the full commission for review, and it's not slated to dole out a final call until April.

[Via Yahoo / Reuters]

Verizon pays up for disconnecting heavy users of unlimited data plans

by Darren Murph posted Oct 24th 2007 @ 7:36AM

Regrettably, Verizon Wireless isn't the only carrier out there that once (or still does) recognized a mighty skewed definition of "unlimited" when it came to data plans, but for those still jaded from being cut off for "excessive use" earlier this year, justice has finally been served. The company has recently agreed to "reimburse the terminated subscribers for the cost of the laptop cards or laptop-connected cellphones" they purchased in order to surf the mobile broadband highway, and moreover, it'll be shelling out $150,000 in "penalties and costs" to New York state. Of course, the firm now makes clear that BroadbandAccess customers can be snubbed if they continuously stream audio / video content, enable P2P sharing or exceed 5GB of data usage per month, but it sounds like reimbursement is on the way for those disconnected when terms were more ambiguous.

Qualcomm's legal quarrels continue... against its own lawyers

by Darren Murph posted Oct 13th 2007 @ 9:11PM

If you had an inkling that Qualcomm's legal altercations were finally concluding, you'd be badly mistaken. Reportedly, the chip maker is now feuding with 19 of its own attorneys (or should we say, prior attorneys) over "who should shoulder the blame for what a judge called 'gross misconduct on a massive scale' at a past trial." Apparently, 21 crucial e-mails and some 200,000 pages of documents owned by Qualcomm were withheld until after Broadcom trials, which was unsurprisingly seen as a "carefully orchestrated plan and deadly determination to hold hostage the entire industry." Now, US Magistrate Judge Barbara Major is "considering sanctions" against the lawyers in question, which has placed their careers in danger and is "prolonging a damaging episode for Qualcomm." We're tempted to ask what could possibly happen next, but quite frankly, we're terrified of the answer.

Discontented iPhone owner sues AT&T, Apple and Steve Jobs

by Darren Murph posted Sep 28th 2007 @ 9:07PM

Rather than simply suing Apple, Steve Jobs or AT&T individually, Dongmei Li decided to throw all three under the bus. The suit, which was reportedly filed this week in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, accused the trio of "price discrimination, underselling, discrimination in rebates, deceptive actions and other wrongdoings for their role in the September 5th price drop on the iPhone." As you'd expect, Li was one of the folks who waited hours on end to be one of the first iPhone owners, and apparently feels quite slighted by the slashing. Purportedly, the plaintiff is hoping to secure "compensatory damages in the amount of $1 million" in addition to other punitive damages, and if you're up for a good laugh, hit the read link to browse through quite a few (more) comical gripes.

[Thanks, Mark]