Google pays out for visual voicemail

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 9 Mar 2009 at 16:39

Google has agreed to settle an intellectual property claim on so-called "visual voicemail", brought by serial inventor Judah Klausner.

Visual voicemail work more like email, by sending visual alerts of voice messages to computers or phones, and allowing users to selectively retrieve the messages.

It is a key feature of many of the latest touchscreen phones, including Apple's iPhone. New York-based Klausner holds several patents relating to the technology in the US, Europe and Asia. His company sued Apple and six other companies for $360 million for violating patents on visual voicemail technology in 2007.

Klausner declined to comment on the terms of the deal with Google, but said the internet giant was now free to use the technology. "Google has a license to Klausner's visual voicemail patents," he said.

As part of the deal, Klausner's lawsuit against Google has been dismissed with prejudice, meaning that the issues cannot be later revived in court action between the two parties.

Google owns two types of service that could be broadly affected by Klausner's patents. It offers web-based phone services through a start-up it acquired, Grand Central, and it has also built the Android platform for smartphones, which it has licensed to companies including T-Mobile and Vodafone.

Klausner didn't say to what degree the agreement covered Android software when it was sublicensed by other parties.

Separately, Klausner said T-Mobile have agreed to license his European visual voicemail patents in 17 European countries. The agreement covers a new visual voicemail service that T-Mobile's German unit announced at the CeBIT IT trade fair last week.

The deal represents the first time a European operator has licensed visual voicemail technology for a mobile phone other than the iPhone.

"We want to offer what currently has a working title of 'visual mobile box' to all our customers, not just those using the iPhone," says a spokesperson for T-Mobile.

"The visual mobile box will be available in Germany soon, definitely in the first half of the year. The application will be available on all phones that have the hardware to support it."

Klausner licensed patents on personal electronic organisers to Japanese consumer electronics makers in the 1970s and 80s. His company is currently working on patents for turning mobile phones into movie or video projectors.