RSSSlight Bright Spot for Vonage: Partial Remand in Verizon Case
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published September 26, 2007, 4:39 PM
It may be extremely slim comfort for VoIP services provider Vonage in the wake of yesterday's total loss in the patent infringement suit brought against it by Sprint Nextel, but Vonage will take it nonetheless: A federal appeals court upheld today only two of the three patent infringement decisions in last March's case brought on by Verizon, remanding the third to a lower court for retrial.
This afternoon, Vonage accepted the good news like a team down six touchdowns in the fourth quarter that has just kicked a field goal from the 48. In a statement this afternoon, the company said it has already implemented a workaround for the other two patents, so service should not be affected. It did not refer to yesterday's statement, which said Vonage would plan to implement workarounds for the Sprint Nextel methodologies.
Vonage Chief Legal Officer Sharon O'Leary sounded all too gracious: "We thank the appellate court for its thoughtful consideration of the merits of our case. We are pleased with the decision to vacate the 880 patent and the damages. However, Vonage remains confident that it has not infringed on the 880 patent - a position we will continue to vigorously assert and look forward to presenting at trial." The remanded patent deals with the use of VoIP services in conjunction with handsets.
From here, the appeals court may have to re-assess the $58 million in damages Vonage owes in the Verizon case, perhaps cutting them by as much as one-third. Vonage's infringement was found to be not willful - a fact which works against Vonage, now that it wants those damages to be reduced.
Vonage also had been fined 5.5% of future revenue as royalties to Verizon, though with Vonage implementing a workaround that may not infringe on Verizon's claims, it's unclear whether Vonage will continue to owe those royalties - in effect, paying for technology it's not using.
Still, it was not damages that Verizon was seeking but a permanent injunction on Vonage's sale of its VoIP services. With two of the three patent rulings from the lower court upheld, that injunction may still be likely...unless the judge in the Sprint case imposes one first.
sounds like a typical battle between two companies headed up by an outright zionist jew for Verizon who is Ivan Seidenberg and Sprint's CEO who is likely a crypto jew and Vonage being a Anglo Saxon Irish sounding person. Meanwhile both of these jew owned and managed companies have no problem offshoring American jobs to India, or worse yet they demand that an unlimited amount of H1-B Visas be granted to them so they can bring in more hordes from 3rd world countries all in the name of diversity and multiculturalism.. This is corporate communism to the T..
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|What is with the Jew comments?
If you think this is some sort of zionist conspiracy, you are misled.
This is about profit pure and simple. Companies make decisions based upon what is in their best financial interest. Hopefully they do so within the bounds of good ethics, but companies that make decisions based upon some political or racial agenda are not going to be successful. These telcos are getting hurt in sales and margin by the VOIP providers. Who incidentally have No patent portfolio with which they can hit back. Notice why Verizon and Sprint are not suing each other...they both are using tech that the other has patents for. Ever heard of MAD (mutually assured destruction)... Vonange in this case has the unenviable position of being a competitor in a market with players that have decades of patents they can use to kill smaller competitors with.
So in other words, the Large Telcos are having to cut margins to compete, also having to roll out there own voip products...all of this hurts the bottom line. They would rather just throw lawyers (renewable resource) at this and make the pressure go away. I predict that after Vonage, they will hit Packet8 and others.
I don't think that the word Communism means what you think it means. In fact you may have even found a new Oxymoron (Corporate Communism). If a corporation were truly communist it would reject profits and pass out all proceeds to the masses in the name of the equality of the proletariat. Such a company would not survive long. Look up USSR on google and read up on how profitable communism is.
No connection here with ethnicism, nationalism, or race. I can't help it if some people see the world through a mask of hate or fear and hence see these sorts of things everywhere they look.
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|He (screwdiversity ) is not misled- he is ignorant (as his username implies). The founder (and now CEO) of Vonage (a made up name) is himself Jewish so basically you have one Jew (Verizon) beating up another Jew (Vonage), hardly a zionist conspiracy (grin).
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What is with the Jew comments?
If you think this is some sort of zionist conspiracy, you are misled.
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|"Still, it was not damages that Verizon was seeking but a permanent injunction on Vonage's sale of its VoIP services."
As you can see, Verizon is not really looking for damages. All they really want is to eliminate the competition by any means necessary. Be it, burying them in legal fees or royalties, as long as the "little guy" is put out of business, that's all they care about. Go corporate America!
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|That is a good point, if Vonage can get work around for all those patents, do they still have to be punished for initially using them? Pay royalties as well? I can see them having to pay royalties etc for using patents they don't own, almost like licensing it.
I am currently a vonage customer, the service works fine. I am amazed at the features and capabilities and price compared to traditional phone service. I mean going online and being notified you have a voicemail and being able to listen to it by going to the vonage website now thats cool.
Let's hope vonage survives, the telecom industry needs the annoyance at least. Although it is very little competition in the big light of things.
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|Yes! Why? Because they got into the game through an illegal route. It's like saying, I used to murder people but I don't do it any more!
I do however hope that Vonage does figure out a way to survive, I love their service.
--->...if Vonage can get work around for all those patents, do they still have to be punished for initially using them?
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|"It's like saying, I used to murder people but I don't do it any more!"
Well, maybe robbing banks or backdating stock options, but not murder.
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