Vonage Signs Deal to Escape Patent Infringement

Tone Def writes "In the wake of a court injunction barring Vonage from infringing on three Verizon patents, the VoIP provider has signed an agreement with VoIP, Inc. to carry all Vonage calls over its network. Two of the Verizon patents Vonage was found to have infringed covered connecting VoIP calls to switched networks, so the agreement means Vonage is no longer infringing those patents. 'By signing the agreement with VoIP, Inc., Vonage has provided itself with a measure of protection against the injunction. VoIP, Inc. owns its own network, describing VOICEONE as the "first, seamless nationwide IP network." Perhaps most crucially from Vonage's standpoint, VoIP, Inc. claims to own the intellectual property around its network and services.'"

How about the third patent?

[gravesb]

I will assume that VIOP will indemnify Vonage when they lose a patent case in court, but what about the third patent Vonage "infringed" upon? What services will they have to restrict in order to avoid violating that patent?

Just curious how old are these patents

[codepunk]

I handed a boss of mine a study paper about 12 years ago that covered probably 90% of the claims. I don't think it was ever released public which would kill any possible use as prior art.

Re:How about the third patent?

[BlueTrin]

From the vague description of the patents, it seems that these so-called patents are alit bit abusive, I wonder if the patent system should not be changed so in the case of an invalid patent, you would have to pay a fee for trying to abuse the system.

There is no barrier to make a patent, for a company it is ridiculously easy and cheap, an australian lawyer even patented the wheel [bbc.co.uk] to prove the flaws in the system.

I work in trading and saw that Goldman patented an automatic trading system, but the description is so vague that anything that would be a database + a statistical engine + an order system could fall under this patent, it is quite ridiculous since there is no other way to make an automatic trading system, and since the patent is only from the late 90s I know that people wrote such systems before they patented it ...

IMHO an invalid patent should be punishable by a fine.

Re:Meanwhile, at Verizon HQ...

[mccrew]

While switching to VoIP stops the infringement, hopefully, Vonage is still very much likely to be on the hook for past infringement. Standard disclaimers apply ("IANAL"), but this would seem to be the pattern based on other recent patent infringement disputes in this space.

Re:VoIP calls from WiFi Phones?

[cdrguru]

Fortunately, the "increasingly useless POTS" system is the one that has requirements for reliability and service. There are no such tariffs in place for VOIP - the level of service is up to the vendor and if they go down for 24 hours no regulator is going to be at their doorstep. It is the same as if your cable TV goes out for 24 hours. No big deal.

Vonage would not be able to compete with Verizon or any other POTS provider if the same rules were in place on it. Neither would the other VOIP carriers. They are, for the most part, utilizing the in-place infrastructure of the POTS system and other broadband services to sell you something that costs them virtually nothing. None of the hardware is theirs, or such an incredibly small part of it is theirs that it doesn't matter.

As a businss model this is wonderful - you get to have a business that collects money for something that they do not have to build or maintain. Essentially they are selling bits at a pretty high price.

If you take this to the extreme point of Verizon shutting down their POTS system, where would that leave Vonage and others? Their business wouldn't exist either because the broadband DSL customers would be gone and the phones that people call would be gone. Yes, you could call your friends with cell phones but try ordering a pizza or calling the fire department. This is the absurd trap that we seem to be moving towards.

If the POTS system becomes unviable to operate the US phone system will look an awful lot more like places like Italy. Phones work sometimes and not others and you can never be sure if someone you want to call can actually be reached.