Home › News ›

Leap, Metro PCS Fight Over Flat Rates

Aug 23, 2006, 2:08 PM by (staff)

Leap Wireless, parent of Cricket, has filed suit against Metro PCS in a Texas court. Leap alleges that Metro PCS is violating its patent by offering flat rate mobile service. Leap filed for a patent in January 2001 and was approved in November 2004 for a wireless service with flat rate pricing and coverage and capacity limited to specific metro areas. Metro PCS is fighting the suit claiming that Leap stole the idea from then while Metro PCS was in talks with Qualcomm, then Leap's parent company, in the 1990s. Metro PCS also argues that it does not compete directly with the Cricket service in any market.

RCR News »

Related

Samsung Refreshes Galaxy S Series with S Pen, New Cameras

Feb 9, 2022
Samsung today announced its lineup of flagship phones for 2022: the Galaxy S22 series. The top-end S22 Ultra sees the biggest changes as it essentially absorbs Samsung's Note series with an integrated S Pen stylus and a more Note-like shape and design, instead of the Contour Cut design of the other models.

Qualcomm Taps Iridium for Satellite Connectivity

Jan 5, 2023
Qualcomm has revealed Snapdragon Satellite , the company's solution for connecting Android phones directly to satellites for truly global coverage. The feature uses the Iridium network, a satellite constellation that has has been in operation for 25 years.

Cricket Goes for Another Ovation

Jun 1, 2021
Cricket today launched its latest Cricket-branded affordable Android phone: the Ovation 2. The new phone is very similar to the first Ovation in terms of specs and features.

AT&T's Newest 5G Phone is Just $90

Sep 10, 2021
AT&T Prepaid and Cricket are offering a new, white-label 5G phone for as low as $90, a new milestone for affordability of 5G phones. AT&T Prepaid is offering the phone as the AT&T Radiant Max 5G.

Cricket Doubles Down on White-Label Phones

Oct 21, 2022
Cricket has started selling two new Cricket-branded phones: the Cricket Icon 4 and Cricket Innovate E 5G. While Cricket has offered many such white-label phones in the recent years, these additions bring the number of own-brand phones the company now sells to ten, possibly a record number for any US carrier.

Comments

This forum is closed.

This forum is closed.

SkillciaX

Aug 23, 2006, 2:20 PM

Why Can't...

They both just have flat rates? I mean T-Mobile, cingular, Verizon, Sprint and so forth all have whenever minutes, nights and weekends, Family Plans? Why should this be any different, regardless of a patent?

cremz

It's a fight to see who first coined the flat unlimited rate. I think it's an attempt to have exclusicity (i dont know a better made up word for it) to the flat rates. It's one rate unlimited...but it's kids fighting over "I said that first, you're ju...
(continues)

...

maokh

And I guess they will follow suit with TMobile, cingular, verizon, Sprint, etc. as they all offer unlimited/flat rate minute plans as well.

...

roamer1

Aug 24, 2006, 11:19 PM

What's Leap trying to gain?

It seems a bit odd to me that Leap would be going after a company that doesn't compete directly with them in any market...I could see them going after smaller/rural carriers that compete directly with them, but Metro? This would be like, say, Cablevision suing Comcast over infringement of a patent related to cable TV; it just doesn't make sense.

IMO, "business method" patents are a bad idea by their very nature, especially when the patent the obvious (as seems to be the case here.)

theyellowdart

Aug 23, 2006, 3:33 PM

we might as well

give Golden Corral(if you have one of those) the rights to all-you-can-eat. 🙄 This is retarded.

GodHatesMe

I hate Cricket

Carlx

Yeah, we had a Golden Corral here. You beat me to it, I was going to make some comment about Sizzler getting a piece of the action.

And yes, this is retarded, but then again we already knew our copyright and patent laws are insane. Or maybe it'...
(continues)

Page 1 of 1