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Mobile telecom company sues Apple over messaging

Mobile Telecommunications Technologies says Apple's messaging and email features infringe on its patents.

Donna Tam Staff Writer / News
Donna Tam covers Amazon and other fun stuff for CNET News. She is a San Francisco native who enjoys feasting, merrymaking, checking her Gmail and reading her Kindle.
Donna Tam
iMessage. Apple

A mobile communications company is suing Apple for allegedly infringing on its patents with messaging services on devices like the iPhone and the iPad, patent blog Patently Apple reported today.

Mobile Telecommunications Technologies claims Apple has infringed on seven patents and filed a suit involving Apple's iMessage, Airport Express, Airport Extreme, and Time Capsule and devices like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. The company is essentially saying Apple shouldn't offer iMessage or any other messaging services including text messaging, iCloud, or e-mail.

Mobile Telecommunications Technologies runs communications service SkyTel, which provides paging and messaging services to U.S. and international customers. One of its patents, published in 1999, covers the "method and apparatus for generating and communication messages between subscribers to an electronic messaging network."