Case Filed: Oct 28, 2011
Case Closed: Dec 16, 2013
Court: Delaware District Court
Judge: Leonard P. Stark
Case Summary:
Callertone Innovations filed a
patent infringement lawsuit against Sprint accusing that their two patents
covering ring-tone advertising were infringed. Callertone had also filed a
dozen other lawsuits targeting other cell phone service providers such as
T-Mobile, Verizon, At&T, Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile etc. from Oct to Nov
2011. The US patents in question were: 7852995 and 7860225 both entitled
“Method and apparatus for selectively providing messages in telecommunications
systems” issued on Dec 14, 2010 and Dec 28, 2010 respectively. The patents
expire[i]
by Jun 01, 2020 and are currently assigned[ii]
to Callertone Innovations (source: MaxVal’s Assignment
Database).
The complaint vaguely claimed
that Sprint Nextel uses “methods and instrumentalities that embody the
inventions,” in its products and services and cites one specific example of
infringement—the use of “ringback tones.” It is a cell ringing tone selected by
the cell phone user to set music or even personalized recorded sound to be
heard when people call.
Separate cases filed against Boost
Mobile and Virgin Mobile were consolidated and the proceedings moved together.
The parties agreed to settle the case and filed a joint status report announcing
to Court that they have entered into a written settlement agreement and are in
the process of carrying out the terms of settlement. Later, the parties filed a
joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice that was granted by the Court.
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Each party will bear its own costs
and fees.
All the above filed cases by
Callertone Innovations have been closed.
See 1:11-cv-01039 for more details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to
our Litigation Alerts.
[i]
Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically
calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents.
[ii]
MaxVal offers
Patent Assignment Alert service where subscribers receive email alerts when
assignments relating to target applications, patents or entities of interest
are recorded.
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