Posted on 04/06/2007 12:15:49 PM PDT by mylife
Judge bars Vonage from signing up new customers
A U.S. district court ruling prohibits Vonage from adding new customers due to a jury's finding that the VoIP provider infringed on Verizon's patents
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
April 06, 2007
A U.S. district court judge on Friday barred VoIP provider Vonage from signing up new customers after the company lost a patent infringement lawsuit to Verizon.
Judge Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia denied Vonage's request to stay an injunction pending its appeal of a patent infringement ruling. On March 8, a federal jury found that Vonage infringed on three Verizon patents and must pay $58 million in damages plus royalties.
Verizon sued Vonage last June, alleging the VoIP provider had violated seven of its patents involving packet-based calling technology.
Hilton issued a permanent injunction against Vonage in late March but delayed its implementation while considering Vonage's request for a stay. Vonage has said it would appeal the injunction to a higher court if it failed with Hilton.
Current customers won't be affected by the injunction, Vonage has said.
A Vonage spokeswoman said Friday that the company is still evaluating Hilton's ruling and that the company would release a statement later. A Verizon spokesman said that company also would release a statement later Friday.
The ruling creates major questions for Vonage's future, VoIP analysts said.
"It just keeps getting worse and worse for them every week," said Will Stofega, research manager for VoIP services at IDC. "For the judge to rule they can't sign up new customers, that's the whole idea in terms of their strategy."
Vonage has said it has an alternative technology it can use that doesn't use the patents claimed by Verizon. "Now is the time to demonstrate they have it," Stofega said.
With no ability to grow, Vonage's future is in doubt, added Jeff Kagan, an independent telecom analyst. "Vonage was the poster child for the new VoIP technology, but now everyone is a competitor, and their importance is limited," he said. "The big question is about the company's survival, not the VoIP technology."
ping
Post #5 - LOLOL. I knew some FReeper would make that statement.
Cable ... about 1Mbps or so.
That ought to work just fine
Well at least I didn't say dialup ;)
If you steal something from a big or little guy, you are taking something the party paid for and has exclusive use there of. Your post tells of a “victim” If you steal something from a big or little guy, you are taking something the party paid for and has exclusive use there of. Your post tells of a “victim” mentality that is the current currency of the Nanny state.
Problem is, there are so many junk generalized patents floating around that an entrenched company with a big legal budget can always dig one up as a way of getting government to crush the competition when the market "fails" them.
High time to come up with an intellectual property system that isn't an international joke.
The post you responded to: Don’t you just love software and business method patents? They’re like a big club for the established players to beat down innovative start-ups with. In the end only we, the consumers, lose.
Under the present patent/legal climate, success in patent litigation often has more to do with the legal resources one has available, and one's willingness to use them, than with the actual merit of the patents at issue.
Oftentimes things are "invented" before they are practical. Sometimes these new inventions are unique and novel. Other times they're obvious to everyone, but almost nobody sees any need to document them since they're not practical yet, and will be obvious once they become practical.
Should companies who spend time documenting the obvious be rewarded more than companies that focus on the practical?
Go with Skype, as I did. It's encrypted and is not dependent on a specific address port. Lawyers can't stop it.
We use a Skype softphone client on our iMac and a handset on our 'infidel' IBM laptop. We used to run $130 a month long distance on MCI coaling relatives in Europe. Now we just buy $10 worth of Skype credits every other month.
Yes. What part of proprietary information or corporate assets don’t you understand. If I invent something and choose to patent it, it is my work at first inventing it and second securing my RIGHTS to my Intellectual Assets through the patent.
No one has the right to appropriate what is mine. If this person was truly the entrepreneurial, he/she would take my idea and improve on it or alternate engineering a better product. It happens all of the time in industry and there is no theft of intellectual capital.
Appropriation of others rights still is illegal in this country; for how long, it is unknown. There was an attempt to abuse Eminent Domain but lately that is being pushed back through the various State Legislatures. The rule of law exists at different levels. If the Supreme Court chooses to abrogate the rights at the federal level, it is still a right of the states to legislate the protection of a person’s property. Taking what belongs to someone else is never right.
At present, lithium-ion battery technology is not yet practical for automotive use, though it's conceivable that at some time in future it might be. Suppose I were to patent the idea of powering a car using lithium-ion batteries. I doubt such a thing has been patented before, nor done before, so there wouldn't be any disqualifying prior art. Should that mean that in the event someone manages to make practical automotive lithium-ion cells I should be able to demand patent royalties when they're put in cars?
I agree that patents and copyrights are necessary, but the present system for administering them is severely broken. The patent office doesn't have any good way to discern what ideas are genuinely novel and non-obvious, versus those which would obviously become obvious should some possible technological advance occur.
Because even independently-developed inventions can be held to infringe patents, patents are supposed to only be issued for ideas which are sufficiently non-obvious that independent derivation would be unlikely. It should be obvious that in today's climate patents are often issued in cases where independent derivation would be not only likely, but nearly inevitable. In what way should that be considered a 'good thing'?
Thanks for the info~!
Did you ever hear the story of the patenting of the telephone and how Bell and the other dude were racing to the Patent office? Bell’s patent was inferior to (I forgot that other guy’s name was); well Bell made it to the office first and the other better patent lost out. Bell went on to market a better phone than the other guy had and the rest is history.
I’m sure you heard of the old saw that the race goes to the swift. The simple truth is that there is no concept of “fair” in the law. There is right and wrong. Vonage’s lawyer admitted last month that Vonage had no plan B if the ruling went against Vonage.
There has been almost a year since Verizon notified Vonage that they were infringing on Verizon’s Intellectual Assets and to cease. The fact that Vonage did not change their behavior and seek to use the alternate technology out there shows a simple flaunting of the law.
Vonage has a very young management team and maybe they thought that they could simply get away with it because they had such a large customer base. The truth of the matter is that there was no way their strategy would work. Everybody in the business knew that this company was headed for the scrap pile of history. Witness the performance of their initial public offering and how it has performed since. The institutional investors wouldn’t touch the stock with a ten-foot pole. The few investors they still have are the small investors who are hoping against hope that some miracle would happen; it won’t.
The courts are bound by the law. Vonage had the money to fight this in court. They gambled and lost. It was a totally losing strategy and their lawyer should be sued for mal-practice. Vonage management should be sued for stupidity in not adopting the alternate technology available to the. It would have cost them a fortune, but they would still be in business. As it stands now; they owe Verizon $58M and must start paying license fees. Without the ability to sell to new customers, there will be a very large hit on their revenue stream and unless I miss my guess; and nothing changes, Vonage will be out of business in a year or so.
So all of this discussion will be moot. Vonage screwed up plain and simple.
If your idea is patented, then anyone that makes use of your idea should have made a search of the Patent Records and found out that their idea is not unique nor is it the first thought. Then they in truth would owe you license fees.
If you ever want to have some fun, look up and see who owns the patent on the concept of WINDOWS display. The idea of overlaying on a screen. (Hint it isn’t Bill Gates.)
A friend of mine had vonage for about 2 months. Their service was so bad an inconsistent that they ended up using their cell phones for everything. They cancelled as soon as they could.
ping...
Sorry I missed your post, I was on the phone ;0)
Your results will vary with any VOIP provider depending on who your ISP is, what equipment you are using to connect with Vonage (some of their supplied equipment does not prioritize VOIP traffic), and whether or not you are downloading anything from your computer at the same time. I’ve had flawless service with Vonage over my ISP, but I wouldn’t even try it with SBC/ATT DSL.
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