On Monday, Klausner Technologies Inc., the owner of U.S. and international patents covering visual voice-mail products and services, announced that Apple as well as AT&T have decided to license its patents on the “visual voicemail” technology. With this move an amicable settlement has been established between the companies, settling an iPhone-related lawsuit against Klausner.
Last year in December, Klausner dragged the two companies to court accusing them of violating its patented technology by offering Visual Voicemail service on the iPhone through which the users can see a graphical list of their voicemails and choose only the ones they want to hear.
The lawsuit also went on to specify that the mobile phone-cum-iPod device and several other visual voice messaging services executed by AT&T breached Klausner’s U.S. Patents 5,572,576 and 5,283,818 issued in 1994 and 1996.
Though in the past it was made known that Klausner was seeking damages and future royalties projected at $360 million, in the current day no details about the licensing fees as well as the other terms of the settlement have emerged.
Elaborating on the Visual Voicemail, it is a feature integrated in the iPhone, which allows users to selectively identify and listen to messages in their voicemail by using the handset’s interface. The iPhone identifies callers and when a message is left, users get the advantage of listening to each message individually, instead of having to use key commands to fast-forward, rewind, stop and start messages as is the case with most phones.