Hop-On Claims MP3 Phone Patent

April 5, 2007 By Digital Trends Staff

Developer of wireless phones announces they've been granted a patent on a MP3 phone with speakers on the side and plans to seek royalty payments.

Hop-On, a developer of wireless phones and accessories as well as wireless surveillance systems, announced today it has received a design patent for what it is calling MP3 phones. This design patent, apparently granted here in the United States, is described by Hop-On has being for "a MP3 phone with speakers on the side, in addition to front and side buttons to activate its camera/video features."

Hop-On wasted no time in stating it would be seeking payment from those whose cell phones might fall into their patent’s rangefinder. "We look forward to the four major carriers, manufactures selling products and major retailers in the US to cooperate with Hop-on’s past and future royalties of its design patent," said Hop-On in a written statement. "Most MP3 flip phones on the market today have speakers on the side of the phones. We will be seeking royalties from previous and future sales of this design; there have been millions of similar phones sold on the market.”

Hop-On added a subsidiary "had signed essential license agreements with Philips, Siemens, Alcatel, Ericsson, InterDigital, Lucent, Motorola, NEC and Nokia for their intellectual property" in the past, so their new patent demands and claims may end up holding some merit.

Showing 7 comments

Ronin at 5:38pm 6th April 2007 I wish them good luck with that. All the money they're going to spend in litigation will likely bankrupt them into non-existence after this silly little volley shot.
todflanders at 7:14am 6th April 2007 This article is misleading. It fails to distinguish between a design patent, which is narrow and more like copyright in scope, and a utility patent, which is what most people think of when they hear the word "patent." See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent. The bottom line is the patent is probably trivial to design around. I say probably, because the author did not link to the patent in question, so I can't tell for myself.
Kinsey at 5:06am 6th April 2007 I agree that a "cell phone with speakers on the sides" should not have been given a patent, but the patent itself is probably worded somewhat differently so that it at least seems novel.

@Richard: Whether they have the patent or not is irrelevant. Previous products by other companies prove that Hop-on did not come up with the idea. I think it's called "prior art".
Richard Lyons at 4:25am 6th April 2007 Good luck to Hop-On, if other developers didn't have the sense to patent their developments as they were made
Aaron at 11:55pm 5th April 2007 The joke here is that company could patent a phone with speakers on the side. How is that "non-obvious" technology? I have to seriously doubt that they actually acquired a valid patent for such an obvious design. If they're smart they'll also patent the mobile phone with push buttons..
Carrie at 11:12pm 5th April 2007 Well...if they own the patent, they should be compensated don't you think?
Ben Krupt at 5:15pm 5th April 2007 Looks like someone is trying to shop for free money. What a joke.