British Telecom Claims Patents on VOIP Session Initiation Protocol 116
An anonymous reader writes with bad news for operators of SIP gateways. From the article: "VoIP-to-PSTN termination providers and SIP vendors will be watching their inboxes for a lawyer's letter from BT, which has kicked off a licensing program levying a fee on the industry, based on a list of 99 patents .. The British incumbent is offering to allow third parties to use the Session Initiation Protocol under a license agreement... BT is requesting either $US50,000 or a combination of 0.3 percent of future revenue from affected products, plus 0.3 percent of the last six months' sales for products as 'past damages.' It's kindly offering a discount for customers that pay up within six weeks of receiving a BT letter of demand, and there's a premium to $US60,000 and 0.36 percent of revenue for those who hold out."
Brits (Score:2, Funny)
I got... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No more Gotcha! patent suits (Score:5, Funny)
FSF Implementation (Score:5, Funny)
Sir,
We select the 0.3 percent of revenue payment option. We have enclosed a check for $0.00 to cover all past and future expected revenue.
Signed, The FreeTards
Wait ... (Score:0, Funny)
Wasn't it BT who a little over a decade ago decided it held the patent on hyperlinks and started threatening to patent troll the whole Internet?