Klausner’s company, Klausner Technologies, filed a patent back in 1992 for "visual voicemail", a way to apply a graphical means of interacting with voicemail messages, similar to the use of e-mail.

Back in June, Klausner had a similar lawsuit settled against Apple, AT&T, and eBay (Skype) over its "visual voicemail" features on iPhone devices.

Verizon apparently had anticipated the lawsuit from Klausner and two weeks ago filed their own lawsuit in US District Court, to have the inventor’s patent declared invalid.

In an article published on Reuters Tuesday Jim Smith, a Verizon spokesman stated: "We anticipated Klausner’s action. We are seeking a declaration that Klausner’s visual voicemail patent is invalid and that Verizon’s system does not infringe the patent in any event."

The latest lawsuit is just a series of suits filed by Klausner dating back to the first in 2005 against AOL.

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Type or click something in the comfort of your home or office, and a machine quite a ways away takes care of the hard stuff – this is the type of virtualization in which Calista specializes.  Or will specialize, anyway, since an "About Us" section reveals that its "first products are scheduled to ship in 2008."

This state of affairs looks a little odd, but in an interview with Wendy Tanaka, Roger Kay, the president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, explained, "Microsoft needs to get something into the market quickly."  Also, any penny-counting onlookers are likely to feel better as a result of Kay’s estimate that Microsoft paid less than $100 million for Calista.

Solid details remain undisclosed, of course, at least pending a release or official announcement from either Microsoft or Calista.  Still, that price would fall in line with Steve Ballmer’s promise to buy about one hundred companies over the next five years for between $50 million and $1 billion each.

In related news, Microsoft is also said to have established a new partnership with Citrix Systems in pursuit of the same virtualization goals.