On Monday, Klausner Technology announced that the company has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against both Apple and AT&T for selling the iPhone. Klausner claims the iPhone utilizes the firm's existing patents and estimates damages and royalties owed at US$360 million.

The suit was filed in the Eastern District of Texas in the United States District Court. Klausner is represented by Santa Monica, California-based law firm Dovel & Luner.

According to Macworld News, the suit also names Comcast, Cablevision and Skype, firms which Klausner Technologies alleges have also violated the same patents as Apple and AT&T through features offered in their services to customers.

The suit cites U.S. Patents 5,572,576 and 5,283,818, which mentioned "a telephone answering device linking displayed data with recorded audio message.” The company has previously sued Time Warner’s America Online (AOL) and Vonage Holdings for infringing on these copyrights. Klausner later settled with those other companies and has licensed its patents to them.

The technology in question via the iPhone is Visual Voicemail, which allows the handset's owners to selectively identify and listen to messages in their voicemail through the iPhone's interface. Here, users can glance at the iPhone interface to see who called at what time and decide if they want to listen to the message without having to use a keypad interface to navigate through multiple messages.

Klausner Technologies was founded by Judah Klausner, who claims to have invented the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and electronic organizer. Klausner claims that Apple’s Newton PDA was covered under an OEM patent license granted twenty years ago under his patent 4,117,542.

An Apple spokesperson stated that the company was unable to provide comment regarding the suit, as it concerns pending litigation.

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