Vonage Barred From Using Verizon VoIP Patents 247
thefiremonk writes "Bloomberg reports that U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton has issued a permanent injunction against Vonage. The goal: to stop allowing customers to make calls to standard phone lines. 'U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton approved Verizon's request for a block today in Alexandria, Virginia. Hilton said he won't sign the order before a hearing in two weeks on Vonage's request for a stay. A jury found March 8 that Vonage infringed three patents and should pay Verizon $58 million.' Does this spell doom for the already troubled Vonage? "
Hopefully they are forced out of business (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:If Not Vonage, Then Who? (Score:5, Interesting)
It would seem the only solution in the end is to entirely bypass the legacy PSTN system and encourage the people you call to switch to a VoIP solution so no calls are terminated by Verizon.
These patents can't be valid (Score:4, Interesting)
- So they have a patent on transcoding from/to VoIP?, there's got to be some prior art on that
- Call waiting?... are you kidding me?
- Wireless handsets?, how does vonage infringe that?, VoIP got nothing to do with wireless handsets.
Vonage needs to hire themselves some real lawyers, Boies seems pretty good at dragging lawsuits forever.
Skype (Score:2, Interesting)
Is the injunction legal? (Score:5, Interesting)
-Rick
Re:These patents can't be valid (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yet another reason for patent reform (Score:3, Interesting)
Not saying I agree with the situation, but the problem is not Verizon enforcing their patents but the patent process itself.
Re:So Much For Customer Service (Score:3, Interesting)
I haven't been following this but I'm not curious to dig deeper to see what exactly these patents are. As in, is it as simple as a patent on network->land line calls? And if so, that's not only an overly broad patent, but could mean the doom for the entire coip industry. Or even open source projects such as Asterisk. I certainly hope this patent turns out to be some very specific technology, otherwise a booming and very useful technology will suddenly have the door slammed in it's face.
I guess that will be the question, is it a patent on a technology or... *shudder* an idea for a technology. An actual method for doing something should be patentable, but an idea like, "what if we hook a network to a phone line" should most certainly not be. And I would think there is prior art if the latter turns out to be the case.
Re:Hopefully they are forced out of business (Score:3, Interesting)
A person almost needs a lawyer to cancel from Vonage these days. Apparently, dealing with ANY telephone provider is getting this bad. There needs to be some laws to protect the consumer, otherwise the telephone industry may lose trust.
Re:So Much For Customer Service (Score:3, Interesting)
Does Verizon pay every ma and pa phone shop who's lines they use passing Cell Calls to land lines?
I highly doubt it.
Why do you doubt it? Of course they pay them. Check out this recent story [techdirt.com] on a company that was making millions off of these payments by redirecting incoming calls back out over VoIP, basically a form of bit-laundering.
And, it's "whose," not "who's."
Re:Yet another reason for patent reform (Score:3, Interesting)
Patent reform.... hell, just get rid of patents (Score:3, Interesting)
There is one and only one semi-useful function that patents actually serve: they document the historical development of technology in a systematic fashion. In other words, the USPTO is really a bunch of poorly disguised historians and nothing more.
I have known many individuals who have spent fortunes on developing patents, and I've been on the brunt of supposed patent infringement and having to change my designs explicitly because of either potential or real violations of patents. When the prevailing opinion is that engineers should never actually read the text of anybody else's patents, ever, you wonder what actual value they give in the first place.
I used to think that mechanical patents might have some value (as opposed to software patents that are completely meritless). Certainly classic "inventors" like Thomas Edison did use the power of a patent portfolio to their advantage, but I would argue that he was a very, very, very (I could repeat this a dozen times) very rare exception and is not typical at all. Far more people are like Philo T. Farnsworth [wikipedia.org] who had an incredible idea, but spent not only a fortune trying to get the patent in the first place and to do the original research necessary, but also fought a very long and protracted legal battle with none other than RCA and David Sarnoff. Mr. Farnsworth barely recovered legal fees and other related expenses, and never really got proper royalties for his invention of television. And when he decided to develop his Fusor technology, he once again went down the path of patenting the technology only to find out that it really didn't matter.
Far more people are like my grandfather, who was awarded 11 patents, but the only person who ever made any money off of those inventions was his patent attorney. One of his inventions was a predecessor to optical disc technology and is explicitly mentioned in the CD (redbook) and DVD patent claims. I could name other inventions of his, but frankly nobody would really buy his ideas, because in reality that is not how most companies use patents.
The typical use of a patent is a defense against somebody else trying to claim they have a patent on one of your manufacturing processes or products. You then pull out your patent inventory (assuming you are a large company) that is stocked full of all kinds of juicy stuff, and you then go back after the original party in the suit. Rather than melting down everything and filing hundreds of lawsuits, the two companies who are then holding a knife against each other goes for a "portfolio exchnage" and usually swaps patents between each other in some sort of agreements. Think of what happened last year between Microsoft and Novell, and you get the picture rather clear about what this type of patent exchange is often like.
There is no way that "Guido's 'net startup garage" with two employees and a couple of patents are possibly going to prevail against a large and powerful company... even if you can absolutely prove that you have a very valid patent. It just won't happen, and what is supposed to "promote the useful arts and sciences" does neither. It doesn't even protect small start-up companies with a very good idea from being overwhelmed by major corporations, much less an independent inventor. In short, what good do patents of any kind actually do for anybody other than keep a bunch of lawyers employed?
Re:May? MAY!?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hopefully they are forced out of business (Score:3, Interesting)
My (true) anecdotal story conflicts with yours. Neither shows a trend.
Re:So Much For Customer Service (Score:4, Interesting)
I find patent infringement hard to swallow though. This is all off-the-shelf equipment, the patents should have been paid for with the equipment purchase.. so maybe it's a software patent on moving the data type "phone call" from an internal network to the phone company network. Either way, the Phone company and equipment maker has been well paid... and they've found a technicality to sue on.
As far as the phone company not getting their "fair share", realize in most cases a phone call is only a 28.8k stream for them... and they pay "long distance" over the same pipes we use the internet for.... in other words typical long distance calling is ALREADY VOIP and customers are being raped for cost of voice (28.8k * $.15/min) compared to data (1Mb/S for $39/month). Phone companies need to adjust their models to better reflect the cost structure... perhaps we should pay more for the higher speeds (6mb) but less for basic (768k) and do away with POTS altogether.. it's a quick change of boxes at your house for most people.