Sprint affiliate iPCS' post-Nextel merger beef with the carrier goes beyond the Nextel market issue; they've also been making noise over the deal that has married Sprint's WiMAX efforts with Clearwire's, claiming that it's sharing awesome technology and other "benefits" with Clearwire that it also has a legal obligation to share with its affiliates. To that end, the Illinois-based company has scored another court win that allows its WiMAX-related lawsuit to proceed, though not without also dropping a claim to collect "undetermined" damages against Sprint that the judge determined iPCS was not entitled to collect under the terms of its agreement. Like the endless Nokia / Qualcomm and Broadcom / Qualcomm legal dramas, this is shaping up to be one for the ages -- so sit back, relax, get your popcorn ready, and make sure you've got a full legal reference at your side.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Truthfully, we're having a hard time coming to grips with this. For as long as we wished that these two would stop bickering, it's actually tough to swallow the fact that we'll never again be able to write about "yet another lawsuit" between Qualcomm and Broadcom (in theory, anyway). After nearly three full years of fighting with pencils, papers and soulless words, the courtroom throwdowns are finally ceasing. In a shocking development, the two rivals have entered into a settlement and multi-year patent agreement that will "result in the dismissal with prejudice of all litigation between the companies, including all patent infringement claims in the International Trade Commission and US District Court in Santa Ana, as well as the withdrawal by Broadcom of its complaints to the European Commission and the Korea Fair Trade Commission." The exact terms of the deal are posted after the break, though you should know that Qualcomm will have to shell out $891 million in cash (ouch!) over the next four years. The lawyers may be out of work, but you can rest assured that there's no shortage of abhorrence between these frenemies.

You just thought that whole AT&T-Dobson Communications tie up was completely over. Turns out, AT&T is now being asked to pay $2 million as part of a civil settlement for violating a pair of court orders related to the acquisition. According to a petition filed by the Department of Justice, the carrier failed to fulfill its obligations when divesting mobile wireless businesses in three rural service areas (two in Kentucky and one in Oklahoma). In essence, AT&T personnel reportedly obtained "unauthorized access to the divested businesses' competitively sensitive customer information, and in some situations used it to solicit and win away the divested businesses' customers," and it doesn't take a lawyer to understand how sketch that is. Tsk, tsk, AT&T.

[Via RCRWireless]

Thanks to SpoofCard, AT&T and T-Mobile now owe some cash in the state of California, and the rest of us have been given one more reason to lie awake at night. The service -- of questionable non-illegal value -- reports your Caller ID phone number as anything you like, and injunctions filed in Los Angeles demand that the carriers stop advertising their voicemail services as being secure, considering that they can be set to rely on the calling phone number alone to connect to a specific voicemail box. For their indiscretions, AT&T will be coughing up $59,300 and T-Mobile owes an even 25 grand; meanwhile, SpoofCard's parent company will pay $33,000 for advertising its service as being legal in 50 states even though it's not.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Good news for South Koreans who love choice; bad news for LG and Samsung... sort of. For those unaware, South Korea is currently under a rule that requires cellphones that connect to the internet to "use domestic software that standardizes network access." In theory, the regulation makes life easier for local software developers, but in reality, it has enabled locally-based LG and Samsung to combine for around 90% of all handset sales in the nation. Moving forward, however, the Korea Communications Commission intends to modify the barrier (effective next April) so that cellphone operators can use "any type of phone" they choose. We suspect three cheers for competition are in order.

Neonode AB, a wholly-owned subsidiary of US-based Neonode, Inc., has filed a petition for bankruptcy in Sweden. The company, which has focused almost all of its efforts on pushing the now aged Neonode N2 since 2004, finally caved after looking so vulnerable in late July. According to Per Bystedt, CEO and Chairman of Neonode: "For the past six months we have focused on turning the business around and solving the financial situation of Neonode AB; we continue to have great belief in our technology and believe we have a competitive product in the Neonode N2 but without sufficient funds we cannot continue operations." No word of a revamped OS. No word of hardware tweaks. Nothing that sounds to us like they really want to survive in today's high-stakes handset market. At any rate, the parent company is hoping to trudge on as a technology licensing company, with or without Mr. N2.

[Via GeekZone]

We told you it wasn't over, and now, that once "manageable" $73 million payment could possibly balloon to upwards of $1.2 billion. As predicted, the prior suit -- which was held in a California state court -- has led to a far reaching class-action lawsuit that could "potentially cost the company as much as $1.2 billion." The suit alleges that the $150 to $200 fees violated the Federal Communications Act and laws in every state of the country, and when summed from 1999 to 2008, they total a magical $1.2 billion. Things aren't looking great for Sprint on this one either, as lawyer Scott Bursor is running the show. Who's he? Just a guy who was involved in getting Verizon to fork over $21 million for the same thing earlier this year.

[Via textually]

We figured back in August that Verizon (and LG) would eventually be forced to pay up in order to keep visual voicemail on its handsets, and sure enough, that's exactly what has gone down with the former company. Verizon and Klausner Technologies have quickly settled outstanding patent litigation by way of Verizon entering into a patent license agreement for using visual voicemail. To date, Verizon is the 15th company to ink such an agreement, ensuring that the suits at Klausner can remain firmly parked in Grand Cayman, Aruba, Maui or any other blissful location they please for the remainder of their Earthly lives. As for LG? We'd say the outcome is all but imminent at this point.

[Via phonescoop, image courtesy of MyDigitalLife]

We could start off by telling you just how much this decision will hurt Qualcomm and just how celebratory the mood must be at Broadcom, but instead, we'll key you in on this quote: "The appeals court also rejected Qualcomm's request for a new trial." At long last, we may have actually heard the end of what has seemed like a never-ending battle between the aforementioned parties. Today, a US Appeals court upheld an earlier ruling that Qualcomm had indeed infringed upon two Broadcom patents while ruling that a third patent in question was invalid. The ruling is obviously a huge win for Broadcom, who will soon be bathing in Benjamins as Qualcomm is forced to pay mandatory royalties for the chips it sells during the "sunset period" ending January 31, 2009.

[Via Reuters]

Just a day after hearing that T-Mobile lost its magenta suit against Telia, more bad news on the legal front has been handed down to the carrier. Just this week, the Supreme Court decided to reject T-Mob's appeal in a trifecta of cases "involving the legal remedies available in millions of cellphone contracts." Each case centered around the same issue: "whether state laws that limit the ability of companies to prohibit consumers from banding together to pursue class action lawsuits are preempted by federal law." In layman's terms, T-Mobile had attempted to ban class actions and require its customers to resolve any gripes via arbitration, which clearly didn't pan out so well. Hit the read link to read the rest, Mr. 1L.

[Via PhoneScoop]

It's been known for years that some of Sprint Nextel's Direct Connect spectrum causes bouts of interference with public safety equipment, and the FCC got the ball rolling on a plan several years ago for the carrier to swap some airwaves with agencies around the country by June of this year to keep everyone happy. Problem is, some 500 of those agencies still aren't ready to trade, and Sprint has taken issue with the fact that the FCC wants it to meet its end of the bargain by next month anyhow. Nevertheless, a federal appeals court has ruled in the FCC's favor, setting the wheels in motion for a possible massive loss of Nextel coverage on the drop-dead date of June 26 -- but industry analysts aren't too worried. Most seem to be predicting that the FCC will end up extending the deadline by six months or so anyway, so Kevin Martin and his ragtag gang must just love watching carriers sweat. Oh, not to mention a few million Direct Connect customers.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Ruh roh kiddos, looks like you'll still be asked to hand over your cellie before checking into first period in New York. Based on a recent decision handed down by a NY court, the controversial ban on cellphones on school property will continue to remain in effect, much to the chagrin of paranoid parents and text-happy students. The report made mention that the complaints over taking away kids' "lifelines" in school were not justifiable, and it restated just how many incidents had been reported where mobiles were used for harassment on school grounds. As expected, livid parents aren't likely to accept the results and get on with things, with the NY Daily News reporting that said folks may take the issue "to the state's highest court."

[Via CNET, image courtesy of MSNBC]

Good news coming from the Motorola camp? Say it ain't so! The long-standing feud between the flagging company and investor Carl Icahn has finally come to an end, and lo and behold, the pending litigation between the two has even been dismissed. Apparently the two parties managed to agree that (effective immediately) Keith Meister, a managing director of the Icahn investment funds and principal executive officer of Icahn Enterprises would be "appointed to serve on the [firm's board of directors]," and William R. Hambrecht, founder, chairman and CEO of WR Hambrecht + Co. and co-founder of Hambrecht & Quist, would be "nominated for election" during the 2008 annual shareholders meeting. Heck, Moto's even soliciting Mr. Icahn's input in dealing with the hopeful separation of businesses -- but then again, it would probably take advice from just about anyone given the current state of affairs.

Oh sure, we've seen alleged criminals wriggle out from under the strong arm of the law, but this one takes things to an entirely different platform. Reportedly, a truck driver in Germany was pulled over for yapping on his cellphone while cruising, but apparently, said trucker actually wasn't talking when the boys in blue saw his handset upside his melon. As the story goes, the 43-year old was actually using the freshly recharged mobile to "warm his ear" in an attempt to alleviate an earache. Astonishingly enough, he was even able to provide "an itemized telephone bill proving he had not been using the phone at the time he was stopped," thus, a court in Hamm accepted the excuse and let him go sans penalty. Something tells us this guy's got friends in low places.

[Via Switched]

Just days after the ITC upheld a December ruling that stated that Nokia did not violate Qualcomm patents, the UK High Court has handed down its decision on a lawsuit initially filed in May of 2006. If you'll recall, the case involved Nokia's GSM / GPRS / EDGE-only handsets and a pair of Qualcomm's patents "that cover certain power saving and power control technologies." Nearly two years after the spat got real, the court has ruled that "although the Nokia accused products included the patented technologies, the power saving patent is invalid and that the power control patent is partially valid but, insofar as it is valid, is not infringed by Nokia." Granted, we reckon that could have been spilled out with fewer complexities, but the end result has Qualcomm considering "whether to seek permission from the UK court to amend the patents and appeal the decision." Please, just let it go.