RSSNext Up to Sue Vonage? AT&T
By Ed Oswald | Published October 22, 2007, 12:27 PM
Battered and bruised from its patent fights with Sprint and Verizon over technologies used in its VoIP service, Vonage disclosed Friday that it has also been sued by AT&T.
The lawsuit was filed October 17 in US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. AT&T says Vonage is selling products that infringe on the company's patents surrounding 'packet-based telephony.'
AT&T further claims that it had attempted to enter into a licensing agreement through negotiations for the past two years, but failed to find a "mutually amicable" agreement between the two companies.
Sought is an injunction preventing future infringement, as well as unspecified damages and attorney's costs.
"The complaint relates to a single patent for a wide area packet telephony system," Vonage's SEC filing reads. "Although the Company intends to continue to pursue an amicable resolution of this matter, the Company cannot assure that this matter will not ultimately be litigated."
With this latest rush of bad news, Vonage shares have fallen even further towards penny stock territory. As of midday trading Monday, The stock was down another 8.4 percent to $1.41, heading towards its 52-week low of 89 cents set in late September.
Vonage managed to settle one of its legal problems so far. Earlier in the month, it announced a settlement with Sprint. However, it still is embroiled in a legal battle with Verizon, and has asked a court to review a ruling against it.
I think the real issue is that there is a loss of revenue from its Cash Cow because Vonage provides long distance and lots of service's for free.
Just because one company figured out how to cross over voice communications over the internet into a neat little package should be AT&T's loss for not inventing the technology first. But i would bet that AT&T knew it could be done, but didn't pursue the invention.
So as the law of American Business dictates, if you can't get a cut of the action, then eliminate the competition - run them into the ground and let their stock be less valuable than toilet paper.
Later with the help of the government like their FCC comrades, the acquisition of Vonage technology can be legitimized.
Who's next...Microsoft for providing free 411 over AT&T landlines?
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|AT&T Play nice don't try to be a monopoly. How can FTC let the merger of Cingular and Bellsouth occur how IS THAT GOOD FOR ANYONE?
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|I hate to see Vonage have such a tough go. I've used the service for several years and they continue to innovate and offer services long before others. Here is what's new if you are a Vonage customer: http://alpha.vonage.com
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|Obviously they didn't "innovate" if they stole several VoIP intellectual properties that didn't involve them. I mean, they both lost cases plus settled out of court: They stole. (Under silly IP laws as they stand now.)
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|Vonage is a company from hell. I can't wait until they are gone.
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|Nice title, Ed. It kinda sounded like a Fark comment!
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|this wants to make me sign up for vonage just to support it.
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|Whats stopping you?
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|funny how all the major phone companies have collectively come against voip.
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|Not against voip - against a voip company that beat them to the punch, using technology that they failed to develop and use for fear of losing capitol.
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|Not even beat them to the punch... Vonage managed to succeed where AT&T and others couldn't due to horrible fees and a lack of vision (IMHO).
Look at AT&T's CallVantage for instance... I had them back in 2002 and loved the service. It was (for the time) well performing and had never gone down on me once. What killed it was the $39.95 price tag with almost $20.00 in fees on top of it monthly. I got VoIP to avoid paying high costs, and yet there they were.
Verizon was the same thing... Vonage is still one of the few that doesn't charge crazy amounts of money for VoIP.
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|If it was all against VoIP, then Vonage wouldn't be the only one in this situation. There are other companies out there that haven't made a name for themselves, yet. Let's take Lingo for example. Cheaper than Vonage, but it provides more to the customer. I like it! I wonder why they're not the ones in this situation.
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