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MetroPCS and Virgin Mobile USA Locked in Court Battle

Sep 30, 2009, 1:20 PM by Eric M. Zeman

MetroPCS and Virgin Mobile USA were both recently denied motions in a case involving MetroPCS' MetroFLASH service. MetroFLASH lets users of Virgin Mobile devices bring them to a MetroPCS store and have them unlocked/reflashed to work with MetroPCS' services instead. Once Virgin Mobile came to realize what MetroPCS was doing, the company asked it to cease offering the MetroFLASH service. Virgin believed that MetroFLASH was preventing it from recouping some of the cost subsidies on its devices. MetroPCS then filed a claim against Virgin, which filed a counter-claim. A judge tossed MetroPCS' claim, but thinks that Virgin may have some rights with respect to its trademarks. The matter is still being pursued in court.

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Comments

This forum is closed.

This forum is closed.

crood

Sep 30, 2009, 2:10 PM

Isn't that part of the risk...

... of being a prepaid/no contract provider? People can leave whenever they choose. It was Virgin's choice to subsidize the phones without guarantee of recouping.

Jayshmay

This is news to me, I thought Virgin is just another cheapo prepaid, they're phones are like what? $20 @ 7-11? I didn't even know they subsidize handsets. Heck, are they're handsets even expensive enough to be worth subsidizing?

Anyway, I'm a consu...
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flip mode

Sep 30, 2009, 6:17 PM

virgin mobile = corporate nazis

greedy losers, your phones arent even all that and you're whining about them getting flashed to another network. why shouldn't people be allowed to flash the phones. ITS THEIR PROPERTY TO DO AS THEY SEE FIT. DAMN CORPORATE COMMUNISTS, if you wanna dictate what people can or can not do with phones then dont sell them...give them for free or rent them out 🤣

asLeepLessman

I don't think the issue is the "FLASHING" of a phone you claim as "Your Property". Thats not what they are pointing fingers at. The issue is that another company (MetroPCS) is advertising a service based around another providers phones (Virgin Mobile)...
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muchdrama

Sep 30, 2009, 11:18 PM

Seems to me...

...that when you buy one of Virgin's extremely cheap phones, it's yours to use however you want.

Still, though...if it's $40 to have it "metroFLASH'ed", it doesn't exactly seem worth it. Metro's got phones for $70 bucks.

Azeron

...which is probably why they are not going after the consumers who purchased these cheap phones. They are going to make Metro expend some resources in the court system though. Win or lose it should make Metro think twice about targeting Virgin (or i...
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