HTC and LG targeted in latest round of smartphone lawsuits

A US telecommunications company has taken two smartphone makers to court claiming patent infringement.

In lawsuits filed at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Mobile Telecommunications Technologies (MTel), claims infringement of patents related to the storing and transmitting of undeliverable messages.

The patents in suit are US number 5,809,428 (the “’428 Patent”) and number 5,754,946 (the“’946 Patent”).

The ’428 patent, called “method and device for processing undelivered data messages in a two-way wireless communications system” describes methods, systems, and devices for storing undeliverable messages, including e-mails, texts, and instant messages.

The ’946 patent called “nationwide communication system” describes devices and networks that provide for the transmission of un-received portions of a message.

MTel alleges that both HTC and LG infringe its claims in their phones and tablets and that infringement also takes place via services including Facebook Chat and Google Chat.

It is seeking damages, legal costs and an injunction against both parties.

The complaint says LG and HTC customers “and all end-users of devices, equipment, products, or services are direct infringers ….”

It adds that LG and HTC directly infringe “and will continue to directly infringe each claim … by making, using, selling, offering to sell, and/or importing into the US mobile devices.”

According to the complaint, filed on November 7, MTel is a limited liability Delaware-based subsidiary of United Wireless Holdings (UWH).

The complaint says UWH purchased New-Jersey telecommunications company SkyTel and consequentially acquired a portfolio of IP developed by several of its related companies, including MTel.

UWH subsequently assigned several patent assets, including the patents-in-suit. to MTel.

Claiming wilful infringement, the complaint adds that LG and HTC “continue to contribute to and induce the infringement” by providing manuals and instructions to their end users on how to retrieve portions of emails and other messages.

The complaint says that the damages awarded should be tripled in view of LG’s “wilful infringement.”

It demands that LG and HTC provide “an accounting of all gains, profits, savings, and advantages” derived by the direct or indirect infringement of the patents, and that MTel be awarded damages adequate to compensate.

Ronald Cass, president of Cass & Associates in Virginia, said there was little to go on based on the patents' claims but added that the increasing amount of lawsuits against smartphone companies made it difficult to tell which claims were reasonable.

“Smartphone makers are frequent targets of patent suits in large part because so many different technologies, so many components and methods of operation, are used in these products that they potentially implicate an extraordinary range of patented or patentable claims,” said Cass.

“What's difficult is sorting through the good legal claims from the bad ones and figuring out which legal claims are reasonable in a world where it makes little commercial sense to think about this on an individual patent-by-patent basis.”

HTC and LG could not be reached for comment at time of writing.