December 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Apple, AT&T sued over iPhone use of patented voice mail technology
Do Apple and AT&T routinely infringe on patents in the knowledge that it may take years for the case to drag through courts and in the meantime they get the benefit of a technology which is not theirs and for which they didn't pay?
Is this the way to run a legitimate business?
It all starts with Klausner Technologies, a company that holds numerous telecommunications patents. Klausner is suing both Apple and AT&T for patent infringement on its voice mail management technology.
The suit isn't the first time Klausner has brought giants in the communications industry before the bench for similar patent infringement.
In 2005 the company slapped AOL with a $200 million suit stemming from AOL's use of a visual display to retrieve voice mails, one of 25 patents Klausner's company holds in the area of remote retrieval of voice messages.
Klausner settled with AOL/Time Warner and AOL signed an agreement to pay licensing fees for use of the technology.
In 2006, Klausner was back again this time suing Vonage Holdings, asking $180 million in damages for a similar patent infringement.
Vonage also settled with Klausner for an undisclosed sum for a patent license.
In the latest suit brought by Klausner Technologies, the company is asking $360 million from Apple and AT&T.
The law suit also claims that Skype, Comcast and Cablevision Systems have also infringed on its patents, in particular US Patents 5,572,576 and 5,283,818, according to Vnunet.com, a British technology Web site.
The question that needs to be asked here is, is it possible that Apple and AT&Ts legal departments were unaware of the Klausner patents and blindly used another company's property?
I kind of doubt it. Which leads to the next question. If they did know of the Klausner patents why did they ignore them? What was to be gained?
Anyone out there with a good legal mind that might have an answer?
Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on December 4, 2007 01:00 PM
November 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
iPhone, What is good for U.S. is not good for Europe
When the iPhone launches tomorrow in France and across the rest of Europe there will be one distinct difference between that market and the U.S. market. Europeans will be able to buy an unlocked iPhone from Orange, the France telecomm carrier.
That’s the law in most of Europe where the option for an unlocked version must be available.
Of course, consumers will have to pay dearly for the right to have a warranted, unlocked iPhone. Some, like techno savvy users here, may want to just unlock it themselves.
An unlocked iPhone in France is expected to sell for 650 euros, $964, U.S. and for a whopping 1,000 euros, $1,484 U.S., in Germany.
With a two-year contract, locked, iPhone buyers will see a saner, but not inexpensive price tag of about 399 euros, about $592. U.S.,plus the monthly voice and data charges that start at 49 euros per month, about $73 U.S.
Orange says it expects to sell about 100,000 devices in the first month, a not unrealistic number according to Vincent Poulbere, senior analyst at Ovum.
However, Poulbere says there’s a great deal of competition in the European market, especially for similar devices that are more highly subsidized.
“There won’t be any queues at the stores to buy an iPhone,” said Poulbere.
The European market will share one similarity with the U.S. market, said Poul-bere, users can expect a price reduction at some point in 2008, especially if a new model is introduced.
With the exchange rate extremely favorable to European shoppers some may get creative and fly to the U.S. buy an iPhone here, take it back and hack it so it can be used in Europe with a local SIM chip.
Technology is fun, isn't it?
Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on November 27, 2007 08:42 AM
August 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The Skype outage news should have a lot of business people thinking twice about deploying a VoIP (Voice-over-IP) system for their company.
This is mainly because it is neither the first time something has gone wrong, nor an isolated incident.
This year alone we have watched the Vonage lawsuit endanger service, the SunRocket debacle, where the company went out of business almost overnight and left its 200,000 subscribers high and dry.
Now this with Skype.
The reasons for the Skype outage last Thursday are still unclear, although Skype seems to think it had something to do with Skype software being unable to handle a Microsoft Windows update that caused millions of users to reboot their computer at the same time.
Sounds sort of far-fetched to me.
Perhaps the scariest part of the Skype problem is that whatever the cause, some Skype officials say the two-day outage was due, at least in part, by an external issue.
Nevertheless, Skype has been trying to build user volume on the business side, says Doug Williams, an analyst with Jupiter Research.
"It will give many business owners pause," Williams told InfoWorld.
He suggests that users not rely on VoIP as a sole means of communications but as a communications option.
Sounds like good advice to me.
Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on August 20, 2007 02:31 PM
