Once RAZR-sharp, now Icahnicly troubled Motorola has filed suit in Illinois court against Apple. More specifically, Michael Fenger, who stepped down from managing Moto handsets in EMEA (Europe, Middle-East, and Africa) to become VP of Global iPhone Sales at Apple. Problem? Seems Moto had a do-not-compete clause, and they see Apple as… er… competitive:
Moto claims Fenger “was privy to the pricing, margins, customer initiatives, allocation of resources, product development, multiyear product, business and talent planning and strategies being used by Motorola”
While I’m sure some people have ditched their RAZRs for the iPhone, I’m going to take a wild guess that it wasn’t because of ill-obtained competitive knowledge, but because Moto mismanaged themselves out of innovation, and Apple produced a killer handset. But that’s just me…
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We already mentioned that Klausner is suing Apple over Visual Voicemail, to the tune of $360 million. Turns out there were plenty of other folks in on that suit – AT&T, Comcast, the list goes on. Well drop one off that list, SimulScribe. SimulScribe is basically the super-voicemail system for the non-iPhone set: offering both transcribed voicemails and something exactly like the iPhone’s Visual Voicemail (SimulSays). Well they’ve dropped out of the case and settled with Klausner.
That basically leaves Apple as the biggest name not to settle – but Apple is also the most litigiously bull-headed corporation around. So expect a fun fight, but don’t expect your Visual Voicemail to go away. Apple may not want to be forced into licensing agreement, but they definitely don’t want to take our features away more. After all, Apple gave in to the very same company over the Newton way back in the day.
SimulScribe, LLC., a co-defendant with Apple, Inc.(APPL:NASDAQ) in the patent infringement lawsuit recently filed by Klausner Technologies, has settled the litigation and has licensed the Klausner Technologies visual voicemail patents. – Press Release
Apple Legal has been busy in the past few days. Apple has officially begun protecting their iPhone Trademark. MY iTablet — once MYiPhone — changed their name on the advice of Jobs himself. And it appears that some of the other blog sites have now received contact letters from Apple lawyers.
In the U.S. system of intellectual property law, if you don’t actively protect your copyrights and trademarks, you lose them. Apple has to do this. I’m sure Apple isn’t excited about taking iPhone community sites to court, but they have to do what they have to do.
figure 1: AT&T has made some changes to benefit customers out of enlightened self-interest.
In news that should please anyone on AT&T, and if you have an iPhone, odds are good that this is you, AT&T is making consumer-friendly changes to how they do things. First, AT&T announced that they will begin pro-rating termination fees. The longer you stay on in your contract, the less of a fee you’ll have to pay. They also announced that they will not require a new contract for a simple change of service. Both are welcome changes.
Odds are good that this change of heart is due to the Senate commerce committee holding those hearings, and T-Mobile’s lawsuit problems — AT&T probably doesn’t want to get into the same legal hot water that T-Mobile is currently in.
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Apple’s response to Greenpeace’s report of PVC, phthalates, and BFRs in the iPhone is short and sweet. Witness the words of the Apple spokesperson as told to MacWorld:
“Like all Apple products worldwide, iPhone complies with RoHS [Restriction of Hazardous Substances], the world’s toughest restrictions on toxic substances in electronics. As we have said, Apple will voluntarily eliminate the use of PVC and BFRs by the end of 2008.”
There’s another key quote from the Center for Environmental Health, the California-based organization that filed the 60-day notice of a suit yesterday. They aim to
“encourage the manufacturers through a negotiated settlement to reduce the use of these chemicals.”
I’m not a lawyer, but my wife is. If they want a negotiated settlement, that means they don’t want to go to court. Court is expensive. What exactly they want, I don’t know; if they want money, this is essentially a shakedown job. If they want to hurry Apple’s schedule or force a warning, they may be doing it on the basis of their ideals. Either way, it’s a lot of free publicity.
Apple was sued on the basis of information from Greenpeace’s report card for the iPhone from yesterday. Apparently, California’s Proposition 65 requires the disclosure of phthalates on a warning label, and the iPhone doesn’t have that. So, the Center for Environmental Health is suing. There will apparently be a 60 day notice before the lawsuit is actually, while the CEH independently verifies Greenpeace’s findings. And ensuring that this iPhone lawsuit is just as murky as all of the other ones, the findings that phthalates affect reproductive functions is apparently in dispute. And Apple is on the record for a timeline of getting rid of phthalates; they’ve already vowed to get rid of the bad stuff by the end of 2008 so I’m not sure who wins with a lawsuit like this except for the lawyers. It’s just bad press for everyone involved.
There’s a class action lawsuit brewing over the price cut and the discontinuance of the 4GB iPhone. I have no idea if this class action lawsuit has merit or not, but it looks like Dongmei Lee want to be a millionaire:
‘For those claims which the Court is still likely to take into account, Li is requesting compensatory damages in the amount of $1 million, punitive damages in the amount to be determined at trial, and a court order that she is entitled to “threefold her damages, the costs involved in maintaining this action, and attorney’s fees.”‘
Dongmei Lee’s class-action lawsuit doesn’t address the bricking of iPhones with the recent update, so maybe iPhoneClassActionLawsuitVille will be a two-horse town sooner rather than later.
