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Oct. 23, 2009

Just after reading Nokia's lawsuit against Apple, now AT&T has launched a major lawsuit against the makers of LCD screens used in cell phones, saying they colluded to raise the prices the wireless carrier paid for 300 million phones.

AT&T has filed that lawsuit earlier in the week in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

However, AT&T didn't specify what damages it is seeking, and didn't provide additional details.

AT&T's new lawsuit also names Samsung Electronic, Toshiba, A.U. Optronics, Chi Mei Corp. and HannStar Display, saying they also colluded to fix prices between 1996 and 2006.

Samsung said it is against company policy to comment on any pending or current litigation.

Other companies didn't immediately respond to messages seeking for additional information or more complete details.

Hitachi Displays, LG Display, Sharp, Epson Imaging Devices and Tatung, all of whom were named in the lawsuit have already pleaded guilty to U.S. charges of price fixing, settling them for more than $600 million in fines.

AT&T added that it was hurt by the price fixing because it was unable to pass along the price increases to consumers.

Like other major wireless carriers, AT&T subsidizes the purchase price of mobile phones and makes its money back on various service fees.

Yesterday was a busy day for lawyers and these companies' legal departments. Also yesterday, Nokia said it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple with the Federal District Court in Delaware.

The suit alleges that Apple's iPhone infringes on Nokia patents for GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN (WLAN) standards. Apple has denied all allegations and said it would vigorously defend itself.

In a press release published yesterday, Nokia said that the ten patents in the lawsuit relate to various technologies fundamental to building devices which are compatible with one or more of the GSM, UMTS (3G WCDMA) and wireless LAN standards.

The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption.

Additionally, Nokia says they are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in July 2007.

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    This article was featured on Business 5.0 and on Tech Blog.

Source: AT&T.