Posted on 04/24/2007 7:28:04 PM PDT by Hal1950
WASHINGTON--Vonage may continue to sign up new customers while appealing a patent infringement loss to Verizon, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
In another reprieve for the struggling Internet phone company, the decision arrived just hours after a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit here spent nearly two hours listening to arguments from both parties. The stay, which arrived without comment from the judges, was part of a brief order that also dictated the schedule for the appeals process.
Vonage chairman and interim CEO Jeffrey Citron applauded the decision and said the company would continue working to add to its some 2.2 million subscribers. "We remain focused on growing and strengthening our business and driving toward profitability," he said in a statement. Citron added: "We continue to believe we have not infringed on any of Verizon's technology and remain optimistic that we will ultimately prevail in this litigation."
While the appeal is pending, the Internet phone company also plans to continue paying a 5.5 percent royalty rate on all future sales to an escrow account, and it has posted a $66 million bond required by the lower court.
Verizon deputy general counsel John Thorne said he expected the verdict would be upheld on appeal, which he said the court has decided to hear within two months.
"The expedited schedule will accomplish the same thing that a partial stay of the injunction pending a longer appeal would have accomplished--limiting Vonage's infringement during the appeal," Thorne said in a statement.
The appeals court has instructed the parties to file briefs and has scheduled oral arguments in the case for June 25. That's an unusually quick timetable for a patent appeal, which often can stretch on for at least a year.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.com ...
While I’m not a huge cramer fan. He’s absolutely hilarious when he brings the cute family dog on the show and has it sitting their with a vonage sign around its neck.
Do not invest in this stock unless you doing for day trading or shorting the hell out of it.
Vonage = dead man walking.
Back in the early 1990s Bell Atlantic went to the state legislature and got big fee increases in return for the promise that they would deliver T3-speed (45Mbps or about 8 times faster than cable internet) to the home. They never delivered, but kept the extra money.
Where is the FCC in this? Verizon is trying to kill Vonage with dubious, obvious patents.
June 19, 2006, Vonage acknowledges that Verizon filed a lawsuit charging that Vonage infringed on seven of its patents related to its VoIP service; the patents describe technology for completing phone calls between VoIP users and people using phones on the traditional public switched network, authenticating VoIP callers, validating VoIP callers’ accounts, fraud protection, providing enhanced features, using Wi-Fi handsets with VoIP services and monitoring VoIP caller usage. Verizon is using this technology in its own VoIP service called VoiceWing.
March 2007 a jury found Vonage guilty of infringing three patents held by Verizon, and not guilty of infringing two other patents. The jury ordered Vonage to pay fifty-eight million dollars, and a royalty rate of 5.5% of every sale to a Vonage customer, back to Verizon.
The three infringed patents cover: (1) Internet to phone-system connection technology, (2) phone features such as voice-mail and call-waiting, and (3) wireless to Internet phone calls.
The appeal ruling concerning an injunction prohibiting Vonage from using Verizon technology is still pending.
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