Legal Worries Delay iPhone Unlocking Software

From Macworld
Fear of litigation has led to an indefinite delay in the planned Saturday release of software to unlock Apple’s iPhone.

John McLaughlin, founder of Uniquephones, based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, said Saturday that he received a phone call about 3 a.m. Saturday local time from a man claiming to be from O’Melveny & Myers, an international law firm, calling on behalf of AT&T. The firm has worked with Apple in the past.

The man informed McLaughlin that if he posted the unlock code, he could be sued for copyright infringement and for dissemination of Apple’s intellectual property.

McLaughlin is concerned that fighting a lawsuit with AT&T or Apple would sink his small company, which does a modestly successful business unlocking wireless handsets in the U.K. and Europe. At the same time, he and engineers in several countries have invested time and money to come up with the unlock software.

“It really annoys me,” he said. “We have the solution sitting there and we have the customers there, but if you connect the two you could lose everything.”

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