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

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]

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]

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.

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]

What would you do if the US patent office gave you the go-ahead on a far-reaching, non-specific application filed for a "mobile entertainment and communication device"? If your answer was that you would immediately draw up lawsuits against almost every major electronics manufacturer that even looked at a smartphone funny, you get a cookie. Yes folks, as impossible as it is to believe, the holders of the aforementioned patent have just sued Apple, Nokia, RIM, Sprint, AT&T, HP, Motorola, Helio, HTC, Sony Ericsson, UTStarcomm, and Samsung... amongst others. So eager was this company to sue, in fact, that legal papers were filed a day before the patent was granted, and subsequently had to re-submitted. The real sucker-punch here is that the patent simply combines a list of prior technologies jumbled into one product, a practice which has recently been ruled against by the Supreme Court. Still, we doubt it will stop the holders from trying to nab a few dollars in settlements, staying the work of real innovators, and generally making a mockery of our patent system. Bravo!

[Via Slashdot]

We know that minding your P's and Q's can be a challenge in a lawsuit as long, drawn out -- and frankly, boring as the ongoing Qualcomm / Broadcom patent dispute, but isn't this just a little sloppy? Qualcomm has been fined a hefty $8.6 million for "failing" to turn over a veritable wheelbarrow of evidence in the Broadcom case, and here's the real kicker: the money goes straight into Broadcom's pocket. Seriously, at this point, wouldn't it have been way cheaper for Qualcomm to just pony up the licensing fee?

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]

T-Mobile launched its myFaves service back in October of 2006, a service that's proven popular with customers -- and apparently, it's gaining popularity with other carriers 'round the world, too. In Canada, Telus unveiled a program whereby five numbers of your choosing get unlimited calling and texting in May of this year; sounds familiar, right? Yeah, it is -- same deal as myFaves, actually -- and that probably wouldn't have riled up T-Mobile. The Deutsche Telekom division doesn't deal much with Canada, after all, and a little international copycatting never hurt anyone, right? Indeed, we figure Telus probably would've gotten away with the promotion had they not decided to call it... wait for it... "My Faves." Now yes, we understand that the "M" is capitalized and they've used two words instead of melding them into one, but come on. Needless to say, T-Mob is less than pleased with the branding and has filed a trademark infringement suit in federal court up in the Great White North with the intention of getting Telus to go with something a little less familiar (say, "Fy Maves," for example). For what it's worth, Telus jumped on the Canadian trademark for its service a month before T-Mobile did, but we're pretty sure the whole prior art concept might apply here.

Virgin Mobile's October IPO raked in a solid $412.5 million -- a little bit off its highest estimate, yeah, but still boatloads (and when we say "boatloads," we mean "hundreds of millions of dollars") higher than what it had thought it could get when it first announced its intentions to go public. A new class action suit alleges that the $412.5M figure was inflated, though, by Virgin's fudging of third quarter revenue figures which conveniently have since been revised down to indicate a $7.3M loss. Unfortunate coincidence? Maybe, but Virgin's stock fell a solid 14.4 percent on news of the redone numbers, so we can understand that a few shareholders might be grumbling about the sitch. Meanwhile, the MVNO's form letter reaction to the news is in full effect, claiming that the lawsuit is "completely without merit," so we're guessing this one's gonna be tied up in the legal system for a hot minute or two.

Wasn't long ago that a Dutch court was showing Nokia the door in its battle to get Qualcomm chips banned; granted, the case was thrown out on a legal technicality, but a win's a win as far as Qualcomm's concerned. Now a US International Trade Commission court has made the same ruling on yet another technicality, upholding an earlier decision to throw out the case based on the fact that there's already arbitration pending between the two companies in California. The whole spat stems from Nokia's belief that certain Qualcomm chips infringe on Nokia patents; in the big picture, though, the suit is just one of over a dozen pending or underway around the globe, making Qualcomm and Nokia pretty bitter enemies by our calculations. Can we watch this all go down on pay per view or something?

[Via mocoNews]

Every time you send a text message to someone in another country, a Maryland man dies a little bit inside. The obviously-named Technology Patents LLC, a patent firm run out of Maryland, says that it holds jurisdiction over every international SMS sent or received in its home state thanks to a pair of recently-awarded patents that cover routing of text messages across the internet as they travel from country A to country B. Naturally, there are boatloads of operators that can send an SMS to Maryland and several that can send 'em from Maryland, so yeah, pretty much everyone is getting sued -- a whopping 131 companies in total. Fortunately, Technology Patents LLC isn't asking for much; it wants nothing more than a permanent injunction against all US carriers from sending or receiving international text messages along with a big wheelbarrow full of cash for its troubles. For what it's worth, the dude running this firm apparently has a spotty past with more than his fair share of legal run-ins, so we're not getting too worried yet. Just in case, though, y'all may as well check to make sure you're not named on that list of 131.

[Via textually.org]

Last we heard from the seemingly endless Nokia / Qualcomm kvetch-fest, the former company was soliciting the ITC's help in barring US Qualcomm chip imports, but for those wishing on their lucky stars that this spat would simply vanish into the night, we've got marginally good news. Apparently, a trio of judges in a Dutch court ruled that it didn't have jurisdiction to rule on the phone maker's claims outside of The Netherlands, thus, the patent-licensing case against Qualcomm was dismissed. Aside from claiming that its "jurisdiction was limited," the court also stated that Nokia's gripe was "too broad to give a reasoned decision." Of note, a German court also dismissed the case just last month on "similar grounds," but if you were counting on Nokia to just take the news in stride, we doubt you'll be pleased to hear that it's already "considering if it will appeal the decision."

RIM may be better known as a defendant than as a plaintiff in the courtroom, but Waterloo's finest have actually done a brisk business filing lawsuits over the past couple years. In late '06, RIM filed a complaint against Samsung for calling its i607 -- a phone suspiciously similar in appearance to RIM's QWERTY devices -- the BlackJack, though the two companies eventually came to an agreement that allowed the name to carry on. Knowing that RIM was playing hardball, Verizon approached RIM earlier this year and asked if it could slap "Blueberry" and "Black Cherry" on some of its LG wares; RIM rejected the request, so Verizon went ahead and used "Black Cherry" and "Strawberry" anyway (apparently Verizon's "request" was more of a notification than a request). Anyway, that whole ordeal has apparently worked RIM into a lather and it has requested the destruction -- yes, destruction -- of all LG phones with "berry," "black," or "pearl" in their names. Don't get us wrong, we don't really want to see millions of phones destroyed, but... well, we kind of do. Especially if they use a wood chipper or something.

[Via Just Another Mobile Phone Blog]

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.