Freedom Wireless, LLC

Freedom Wireless (Freedom Wireless, Inc. / Freedom Wireless, LLC) is a closely held, Phoenix, Arizona–based patent-holding company. It is not publicly traded. Contemporary reporting described it as a "four-person operation" in 2006, with Larry Day as president; no verified current headcount, revenue, or ownership data is available. The entity has appeared in litigation under both "Inc." and "LLC" designations, including the Eastern District of Texas docket tracked here.

Products / operations. Freedom Wireless has no meaningful product or service operations. The technology traces to 1994 work by inventors Douglas Fougnies and Dan Harned, whose prepaid cellular patents were originally assigned to Cellexis International, Inc. and later sold to Freedom Wireless (per a D. Mass. decision in GTE Wireless v. Cellexis). The asserted portfolio is small and focused on prepaid wireless billing: systems and methods letting pre-authorized subscribers complete calls without dialing pass codes and replenish airtime via pre-paid cards. Named patents include U.S. 5,722,067; 6,157,823; 6,236,851; 5,854,975; and 6,434,378. It functions as a licensing/assertion entity, monetizing an acquired portfolio rather than selling goods.

Litigation posture. Freedom Wireless is a one-directional plaintiff: 1 tracked case as plaintiff and 0 as defendant, all in the plaintiff-friendly Eastern District of Texas (Marshall Division). That profile — many infringement suits, no defensive suits — is characteristic of a non-practicing assertion entity. Defendants have at times responded with declaratory-judgment actions elsewhere (Cingular and Ericsson filed in D. Arizona).

Notable cases / context. The flagship matter was Freedom Wireless v. Boston Communications Group (D. Mass., filed 2000), where a jury awarded $128 million in May 2005 against BCGI and carriers Cingular, AT&T Wireless, CMT Partners, and Western Wireless; it settled in July 2006 for $87 million ($55.3 million from BCGI), with Verizon Wireless previously settling and licensing. In late 2006 Freedom Wireless filed E.D. Tex. suits against Cingular, Ericsson, Alltel, Comverse, and VeriSign, followed by a 2007 action against SunCom Wireless. The tracked case, Freedom Wireless, LLC v. Cingular Wireless LLC, reflects that Texas campaign.