Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Receive the latest technology news and information.
Networking
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
Cloud Computing
View all newsletters




Privacy Policy
 

Vonage loses Sprint Nextel patent suit

Jury awards Sprint $69.5M; Vonage wants verdict set aside

September 26, 2007 12:00 PM ET

IDG News Service - A federal court ruled yesterday that struggling voice-over-IP provider Vonage Holdings Corp. infringed on patents owned by Sprint Nextel Corp.

Jurors in the U.S. District Court in Kansas found that Vonage willfully infringed on Sprint's patents as part of its VoIP service, Vonage said. The jury awarded Sprint $69.5 million in damages, which amounts to 5% of Vonage's revenue during the infringing period.

Vonage plans to initially ask the court to set aside the verdict, but if that fails, the company will appeal the decision. In the meantime, Vonage will also develop work-arounds that don't require Sprint's patents, it said.

This is the second legal blow to Vonage this year. Earlier this year, a court found that Vonage infringed on Verizon Communications Inc. patents. That case came with an injunction that would have prevented Vonage from signing up new customers. Vonage won a stay of that injunction and is appealing the original infringement ruling.

Although it's clearly bad news for Vonage to have two patent infringement rulings against it, the appeals could change everything, said Seth Ostrow, a partner specializing in patents at Dreier LLP. "Often, there are mistakes made during various stages of a case that form the basis for a successful appeal, and that, coupled with the statistics, gives reason to think that Vonage has a significant chance of getting this changed," he said. Statistics show that patent cases often get changed on appeal, he said.

In August, Vonage said it had nearly completed rolling out work-arounds for two of the three patents claimed by Verizon. Still, the Verizon case alone appears to have slowed growth for the company, the largest independent VoIP provider. In its second quarter this year, Vonage added 57,000 customer lines, compared with 256,000 in the same quarter in the previous year.

Vonage has said that Verizon pursued the lawsuit in an effort to eliminate a competitor.


Reprinted with permission from

IDG.net
Story copyright 2009 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

Jump to comments

vonage

Additional Resources

Xerox
By using solid ink technology only from Xerox, you could save up to 65% by printing color for the cost of black and white. Enter for a chance to WIN a PhaserTM 8860 network color printer!
Microsoft
Save time and mitigate security risk. Deploy it now.
Sybase
In this white paper, IDC analyzes the role of next-generation mobile enterprise platforms as organizations seek a more strategic deployment of mobile solutions.

Learn the important issues you must consider before starting your next mobility initiative. Get your mobility white paper from IDC now, compliments of Sybase.

What People Are Saying

White Papers & Webcasts

Southern Company
Download Now  

Aligning IT to Business: The Rising Importance of Application Delivery Networks
Application Delivery Networking (ADN) will play a vital role in helping enterprises incorporate strategic technologies to achieve business initiatives.

Mitigate Risk, Lower Costs and Improve Network Efficiency
Create a stable IP network that not only meets today's challenges, but is flexible enough to also meet future demands.

Share our Strength
Download Now  

Preparing Your Business Services for the Future
Would you trust your network monitoring tools enough to know when something is truly halting a business service?

IPAM: Slashing Network Costs
Slashing Network Costs by Consolidating and Automating Core Network Services

Horror stories: Managing IT Across Multiple Locations
How one extra sharp IT manager eliminates daily agony, hassle and repetition.