Apple settles suit with Klausner over Visual Voicemail technology

The privately held Klausner in December formally charged the two companies with treading on its patented technology by offering Visual Voicemail service on the iPhone which lets customers see a graphical list of their voicemails and choose only the ones they want to hear.

Specifically, the lawsuit alleged that the Apple handset and other visual voice messaging services implemented by AT&T infringed on Klausner’s U.S. Patents 5,572,576 and 5,283,818.

Neither the licensing fees nor the other terms of the settlement announced Monday were made public, though Klausner was originally seeking damages and future royalties estimated at $360 million.

Klausner, which is owned by a group of private investors, also told Reuters that it has struck a licensing deal with eBay, and is presently in discussions to achieve similar results with Comcast and Cablevision. Lawsuits against those three firms had also been pending.

Klausner has also in the past successfully defended and then licensed its two visual voicemail patents to other industry heavyweights that provide visual voicemail services, including Time Warner’s AOL for its AOL Voicemail services and Vonage Holdings for its Vonage Voicemail Plus services.