Klausner Technology, a company that claims to have the patent for the visual voicemail feature that Apple uses on its iPhone has filed an infringement lawsuit against the Cupertino company and AT&T.

The visual voicemail feature allows users of the hit mobile communications gadget to scroll through a list of voicemails and prioritize their listening order rather than having to play all of them in the order they were received.
But Judah Klausner in a lawsuit filed in Texas Monday argues that the technology violates his intellectual property rights by allowing the user to retrieve voice messages selectively via the iPhone's inbox display.

In the same lawsuit filled in the Eastern District of Texas in the United Stated District Court are also named Comcast, Cablevision and Skype, as Klausner Technology claims that these firms also use the same patents as Apple and AT&T in their services offered to their clients.

The Klausner Technology cites in this lawsuit two U.S. Patents that are about “a telephone answering device linking displayed data with recorded audio message” and the company already sued other companies for this feature and reached settlement agreements. It’s about Warner’s America Online (AOL) and Vonage Holdings with which after suing them for infringing on these copyrights, Klausner Technology has settled and licensed its patents to them.

"We have litigated this patent successfully on two prior occasions," said Greg Dovel of Dovel & Luner, counsel for Klausner Technologies, in a statement Tuesday. "With the signing of each new licensee, we continue to receive further confirmation of the strength of our visual voicemail patents."

Klausner Technology claims, for the Apple’s usage of its already existing patents and for estimate damages, a fine of $360 million and in case of Comcast, Cablevision and Skype $300 million from each company.

According to Dovel, Apple's original mobile device, the Newton, was covered under a patent license granted 20 years ago by Judah Klausner under US Patent 4,117,542.

Klausner Technology is a company founded by Judah Klausner who claims also to have invented the electronic organizer and the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).