What Goes Around, Comes Around, or Legal Spin the Bottle

Well if you’re a Telco and think your legal team can be a profit center then guess what? So will other folks as well.

Intellect Wireless Inc. has sued T-Mobile USA Inc., U.S. Cellular Corp., Virgin Mobile USA Inc. and Helio Inc. in federal court in Chicago, accusing the companies of infringing wireless image messaging patents.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Intellect Wireless, a Texas company with offices in Fort Worth and Reston, Va., said in the 8-page filing that it holds rights and standing to sue for violation of a patent entitled “Picture Phone with Caller ID” and for two separate patents called “Method and Apparatus for Improved Paging Receiver and System.” All three patents were issued in 2007.

The suit said Daniel Henderson, the founder of Intellect Wireless, is the sole inventor of the patents at issue. Overall, according to the suit, Henderson has 25 U.S. patents and several pending related to picture/video messaging in wireless devices such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants and portable computers.

But wait! It doesn’t stop there! –

Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc. have been hit with new class action consumer suits in Florida and California federal courts, the litigation coming as Congress grapples with wireless consumer protection bills that could reduce state oversight of cellular operators.

The Florida suit alleges Sprint Nextel subscribers were charged for roaming charges on the No. 3 carrier’s network after being told they would not incur such fees under a major calling plan.

“Sprint knew or reasonably should have known that these representations were materially false, deceptive or misleading because it not only routinely charged PCS Free and Clear Plan customers roaming rates for calls made and received ‘on the network,’ Sprint even charged these customers roaming rates for calls in their home cities where the plan was sold and where Sprint purportedly provided comprehensive network coverage,” the suit stated. “In fact, Sprint not only charged its customers roaming charges for calls made on the Nationwide Sprint PCS Network, it even charged them roaming charges for calls received on the Nationwide Sprint PCS Network.”

You know, If some company would come out with a campaign that said — “Here’s our costs. We think we deserve X profit. We’re willing to sell for Y, no tricks, bring your own phone or we will sell you one. See you in a year, we’ll talk to you for the next deal.” Don’t flip your customers, resolve the problems, post your policies online. Live up to your agreements.

But lawyering up is no solution. And IP lawyer green mail should be outlawed. Radical suggestion — Patents cannot be sold. It stays in force while the company uses it or it devolves to the personal engineer. When once no parties exist to be holder of record then the invention or process goes creative commons.

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