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'?
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.