Freedom Wireless Sues Cingular, Alltel and Others

By Divya Narain

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

Freedom Wireless, Inc has filed two patent-violation suits in the federal court in Marshall, Texas. The first lawsuit indicts Cingular Wireless LLC, a leading wireless carrier, and Ericsson (News - Alert) Inc., a prepaid wireless services provider of copyright infringement. The second case has been filed against Alltel Corporation, a national wireless carrier, and two prepaid wireless services providers, Comverse, Inc. and VeriSign (News - Alert), Inc.

 

Headquartered in Phoenix, Freedom Wireless, Inc. is a technology research and development company that holds a number of patents on systems and methods for enabling prepaid wireless telephone services.

 

As per the lawsuits, the carriers and services have been charged with the violation of three patents for prepaid security cellular telecommunications systems, owned by Freedom Wireless. The suit claims that the three patents had been issued to Freedom Wireless by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office between 1998 and 2001. The compensation and injunctions sought by Freedom Wireless have not been specified.

 

"Like many development and technology companies, our patents are our lifeblood and we will vigorously enforce our rights to prevent others from using them without licenses,” commented Larry Day, President of Freedom Wireless in a statement to the press.  

 

“We believe that these companies have built their prepaid telephone businesses and systems on the unauthorized use of Freedom Wireless' patents, knowing that their systems are infringing. We brought suits in federal court in Marshall, Texas because of the vast experience of that Court in patent matters and because of the special procedural rules that Court has adopted to efficiently and expeditiously resolve patent infringement cases,” also commented Day.

 

Freedom Wireless, Inc. has pioneered the development and licensing of advanced technologies in the prepaid wireless industry and continues work on more solutions.