RIM sued over visual voicemail patent, could seek indemnification from App World vendor?

By on Feb 25, 2010 at 2:39 PM
Exclusive February 25, 2010

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Over the past several years Klausner Technologies, Inc. has been making headlines by suing large mobile companies, notably Apple and RIM, over alleged visual voicemail patent infringement on iPhone and BlackBerry devices. The company was founded by Judah Klausner — whose name sits atop the first PDA patent from 1978 (you can read more about him here). In 2009, Klausner Technologies named RIM in a lawsuit claiming ownership of several visual voicemail patents that RIM has filed and is now, obviously, making money from. Here is where the story takes a turn for the obscure…

RIM sent a letter to a small App World vendor — who asked to be kept anonymous  — claiming that the App World vendor may be responsible for the damages Klausner is seeking under Section 12 of the App World Vendor Agreement. A quick summation of Section 12:

Vendor shall indemnify, and if requested by RIM defend, and hold harmless RIM…from any third party claims, costs, damages, losses, settlement fees, and expenses…incurred directly or indirectly by a RIM Indemnified Party as a result of Vendor’s breach of this Agreement and/or as a result of any claim, suit, judgment, settlement, or cause of action…

The App World vendor in question provides a third-party visual voicemail service that is not native to BlackBerry OS, but rather a standalone service that one must sign-up for prior to downloading the application in App World. Now, to be clear: RIM was the sole company named in the suit filed by Klausner, and the suit covers RIM’s visual voicemail patent as applied and used in newer BlackBerry devices. Seems odd that a $38 billion company would try and drag a small software/service vendor into this legal battle where the patent in question has nothing to do with their product, no? We’ve reached out to RIM for comment and will update this when we hear back.

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32 Comments

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  • Will

    bound to happen

  • Jon

    The letter isn’t dragging them in. It’s just saying FYI: we’re getting sued and if Klausner drags your app into it (“it is possible”), then the third party vendor has to fight Klausner too. It’s a sensible letter and procedure.

  • Drew

    All it was, was RIM given them a heads up.

  • John

    Wow, once again BGR doesn’t even bother paying attention to what they are writing and throws up a completely incorrect headline. Try reading the letter in that image you posted right there in the article, you don’t even need to click on a link!

    They’re simply giving the vendor an “FYI: You might be sued too!”, and the purpose of mentioning the Vendor Agreement is to remind them that if they are sued, RIM isn’t responsible for their app.

    • Andrew Munchbach

      What the letter says is that they might owe RIM indemnification from the lawsuit even though the patents the lawsuits cite have nothing to do with the third-party company.

      • Doug

        The problem is, these are two separate items and you are trying to tie them together.

        1) RIM is being sued for patent infringement.

        2) *IF* Klausner drags this unnamed vendor into another trial, RIM is reminding this vendor that THEY (the unnamed vendor) is solely responsible for any and all damages, including anything which may be encountered by RIM for hosting the application.

        Point #2 is what you are not quite getting. It is not RIM’s job to verify that every application in their app store doesn’t violate someone’s patent. That is the job of the application creator and seller. Right now there is no mention of this application violating anything. RIM is just informing them that they (once again the unnamed company) should investigate whether or not they too could be infringing on this patent and if they are that RIM is in no way responsible for this unnamed company’s infringement.

      • JR

        no it doesn’t

  • Jon

    As an app store developer this kind of action by RIM makes me VERY nervous.

    They are throwing the app store vendors under a bus.

    And that is a dangerous precedent to set.

    • Doug

      How is this throwing a vendor under the bus? Why on earth should RIM be responsible for someone selling something in their store violating someone’s patent?

      • zcarman

        Shouldn’t they check the code before selling it? Look what that little company did to Microsoft for what – 3 lines of code in XML translators? Of course, RIM may have ‘borrowed’ from that App for their own use – which makes them double guilty…

        I do agree though, it’s just a letter saying, “Here’s a heads up, incase you get drug in to this.”

  • Bill

    Andrew – you have it wrong.

    1) It makes no sense to say “the suit covers RIM’s visual voicemail patent”. Klausner wouldn’t sue RIM over a RIM patent. Klausner would be alleging that RIM’s product infringes Klausner’s patent.

    2) Jon, Drew and John are correct. The letter clearly says “It is possible that Klausner will accuse (the developer’s app of infringing Klausner’s patent).”

    3) There is nothing wrong or uncommon about RIM’s letter. You simply don’t understand how the patent/litigation world works. To give you a parallel example, I suspect it would be like someone suing BGR’s ISP for allegedly libelous comments made by one of its bloggers. Your ISP would say – hey BGR, I know I provide the medium for your words, but they are YOUR WORDS and you need to fight this lawsuit, not me.

  • Bill

    By the way, I agree that the headline is very misleading. You should change it out of respect to us readers, otherwise we get suckered into clicking through to a story that doesn’t live up to its headline (which wastes our time).

  • Mac

    Ha ha – if BGR thinks RIM should be responsible for every app sold on App World, then I guess BGR should be legally responsible for every incorrect or plaigarized comment posted on this site! Ouch!!!

  • blah

    I think RIM is out of line. Let’s say for example that RIM publishes an API that in and of itself violates someone’s patent. Then developers use that API to build apps, shouldn’t the provider of the API be just as liable as the developer? The remedy in that situation would be hat RIM would need to not allow developers to knowingly infringe. As an analogy, IF guns were illegal, but I sold you all the parts to build one, with the directions, I shouldn’t be allowed to indemnify myself simply by stating that in an agreement. ***disclaimer … I’m not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV

    • Ummm…

      So, if you sell cars or teach drivers ed and one of you customers or students runs someone down, you would be liable? No.

      • me too

        I understand what’s being discussed, but I feel there are definitely situations where the answer is the opposite. If you make cars, and a second party customizes the paint job, and sells it to someone else… the second party should not be sued if someone comes along to you and says the shape of the body panels are patented. Another example. You make an API in English. You don’t realize you’re infringing on a patent for English. I create an application for your device using your provided API of English. You get sued. Am I wrong for using your English? Am I liable?

        However, all this bantering is pointless because RIM has people sign an agreement apparently, indemnifying RIM. People signing that might be SOL in these kinds of situations.

      • blah

        No, but if you build cars and infringe on the patent for a car, and if I’m the guy who adds a SiriusXM radio to that car, I shouldn’t be liable either.

      • Ummm…

        No, but if I build cars and the radio I build and install might violate a patent, I am responsible. if a third party designs a separate radio for the car and it also might violate the same patent, I am not responsible for that third party’s violation.

      • E

        You most certainly are responsible for what you are selling even if parts are provided by a 3rd party. Use some common sense! People need to take responsibility that want to be in the middle of what others are doing as the end provider.
        If you do not want that responsibility then stay out of or do not use what they offer. Plain and simple.

        How do people think such poor examples have even a close relation to the topic at hand. Its like everyone looses have their IQ when they jump on the computer.

  • JM

    It might be a good idea to have someone with at least a small amount of legal knowledge to review these types of posts. It
    would serve BGR and its readers well.

  • STFU

    Sounds like something the fools at Apple would do.

    Are you sure this isn’t Apple?

  • JR

    Andrew Munchbac:
    This paragraph in your article shows a complete lack of understanding of the letter:
    “RIM sent a letter to a small App World vendor — who asked to be kept anonymous — claiming that the App World vendor may be responsible for the damages Klausner is seeking under Section 12 of the App World Vendor Agreement. A quick summation of Section 12:”

    No, they did not claim the vendor might be responsible for the damages Klausner is seeking. The letter says only that Klausner might also accuse the vendor and if they do, the vendor is reminded that RIM is indemnified from those claims…not the claims made directly and already against RIM.

  • Ummm…

    So….when is this article and headline going to be corrected?

  • theproto

    Is it just me or is BGR becoming less news oriented and more like some digital tabloid more based on opinion?

    I mean last week’s completely “misinterpreted” or all out attack on RIM’s bandwidth preservation keynote points and now this.

    Is Apple being nice to you folks?

    Please return to the cutting edge news format for your own sake.

  • Ener Ji

    So when is this article going to get corrected? The comments above say it all. The author of this blog post is wrong (it happens to everyone, just accept it) and it’s time to issue a correction to the post and move on.

  • blah

    I wonder how many of the folks commenting are RIM employees…

    I’m on the developers side… that letter, regardless of it’s intent should NEVER of been sent. It proves that RIM only cares about itself, else it would of offered to help the developer fix their app to make it non-infringing.

    • blah is ass

      If RIM only cares about itself, it can simply NOT send the letter, and if the anonymous company got sued, RIM will have no liability…
      And then you so called developers will be accusing RIM for not inform you about the matters…

    • Ummm…

      So, only RIM employees are literate enough to have read the letter in question?

      What does it mean to be on the developers side in this case? That if they did indeed violate the Klausner patent, separately from RIM’s own possible violation, that RIM should be responsible for the vendors actions in all cases?
      That makes a ton of sense.

  • Mike

    GUYS—you’re all missing the BIG point here.

    The complaint is against RIM and only RIM. NOT RIM’s APP STORE. It does NOT allege that RIM is responsible for anything OTHER than RIM’s OWN devices and the visual voicemail feature on them.

    RIM has decided that they would prefer to DEFLECT the attention from their OWN transgressions and point the finger at app store vendors — WHICH ARE NOT MENTIONED IN THE COMPLAINT AT ALL!!

    RIM is TRYING to drag them in.

    Geez. Don’t ANY of you get litigation strategy??? This is TRULY a SLIMEBAG maneuver.

    • Ummm…

      Talk about missing the point. The article says that RIM is warning vendors that the vendors may be responsible for the actions RIM is being sued for. That is the basic premise for the article and completely, 100% inaccurate. The worst you could claim RIM’s letter does is warn vendors that Klausner might come after them as well and if they do, then the vendors are responsible and not RIM, for those potential future claims against the vendors.

      Anything else is conjecture and active imaginations.

    • Brice

      Um.. Sir.. You have no idea what you are talking about..

      RIM did not deflect to the APP STORE… They went specifically to the one developer who makes a Visual Voicemail app, and said ” Hey we are getting sued. You have an app just like the app that is said to infringe on the patent, so watch your ass.”

      They never sent that out to anyone, except the developer, not to the press to deflect litigation.

      The developer didn’t read the post, and then forwarded it to the press..

  • http://www.mobileman.com BlackBerry Application Developer

    IP Management (Intellectual Property) becomes more and more important.

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