Vonage Signs Deal to Escape Patent Infringement 60
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? (Score:4, Interesting)
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WiFi patent (Score:3, Informative)
Also, Vonage provides SoftPhone accounts, where you run SIP software on your PC using Vonage SIP credentials... If I use th
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But even so, in the case of the one WiFi phone that Vonage sells, aren't they just using the manufacturer's stack, which would be handling all of that? It's a standard WiFi SIP phone, and as far as I know the firmware doesn't have any major Vonage modifications, other than being locked down to Vonage service. In the case of the softphone programs running on a PC, I
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Holy crap. How can you get a patent on [using a network protocol] over [a network technology]. I'm going to go patent [HTTP] over [Ethernet]. Then I'm going to patent [DNS] over [A Packet Switched Network]. Then I'm going to patent [IP] over [Fiber Optic Cables].
Re:How about the third patent? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Meanwhile, at Verizon HQ... (Score:5, Funny)
Curses!!! Foiled Again!!!
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Just curious how old are these patents (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just curious how old are these patents (Score:4, Funny)
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Don't go admitting that publicly. Verizon might sue you next.
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VoIP calls from WiFi Phones? (Score:3, Insightful)
How can you patent something like that? Could I patent "VoIP calls from Ethernet connected phones" or "VoIP calls from token-ring connected phones?" Something also tells me Verizon only patented this so that they could squash competition and keep their increasingly useless POTS system viable.
This just shows how our patent system is completely incompatible with TCP/IP. If you can patent one layer of the stack, you can halt innovation on other systems.
Also, aren't there Skype phones that do this? Why isn't Verizon suing them?
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Re:VoIP calls from WiFi Phones? (Score:4, Insightful)
don't worry, once a sufficiently large portion of the customer disconnections are attributed to skype, they too will be sued.
it's importnat, however, to wait for the "infringer" in question to get close to profitability before slapping the infringment case on them.
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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. Th
Pure FUD. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Who lives in the telecom world? Three nines is what, 1.5 minutes of downtime for every 24 hours and 5 nines is 0.015 minutes of downtime? Does it really matter at this point? Doesn't everyone own a cell phone at this point anyway?
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Right. And that cell phone has no access to 911 at all? Your point is mostly chicken-little-screaming, most likely from someone with little to no actual knowledge of any of the systems.
Is a POTS line a requirement? The answer is increasingly "no". Cell phones, even ones without a service plan, can call 911. For that matter, so can any POTS line still physically connected to a switch. The issue wi
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"The issue with voip-911 has NOTHING AT F'ING ALL to do with local phone companies."
Wrong. Vonage offers E911 in many areas. These are the a
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I can order a pizza online, and if there's a fire I have my cell phone.
And there's absolutely no reason IP networks can't have the same service requirements that POTS systems have. In fact, Verizon's FiOS system installs a UPS backup to allow access during power outages. For a fifty bucks, I can get the same reliability from my cable broadband service.
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Except they aren't designed for or dedicated to voice traffic. It's an unreliable transport medium. Placing traffic that requires some measure of reliablity on such a system and then bitching about it being unreliable is laughable. Mandating reliablity standards suitable for voice is also laughablly misplaced. IP networks are reasonablly reliable for most purposes, but not critical, emergency communications.
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The original article about the patents infrigement (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The original article about the patents infrigem (Score:2)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070402-von a ge-hangs-up-on-verizon-patent-infringement-with-ne w-agreement.html [arstechnica.com]
et another ridiculous summary headline... (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, can we get some editors that are worth a damn!
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This deal means that the WORST that can happen is that Vonage pays some fixed-price settlement/damages/whatever and then the problem is done with. Vonage won't get stuck with an injunction or paying eternal license
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Last month, a federal jury found that Vonage's VoIP services infringed on three patents owned by Verizon after deliberating for less than a day. Two of the patents cover connecting VoIP calls to public switched telephone networks (PSTN); the third covers VoIP calls made using WiFi phones. While the jury found that Vonage did not knowingly infringe on Verizon's patents, it did award the telecom $58 million in damages.
Both the summary and the article CLEARLY state that the deal is to prot
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IANAL, but it seems that by taking this step, they are making the appeal process more favorable, as they will be able to point to this and go, "See, we're not infringing on the patents anymore!" The main suit will still go forward, as Verizon can continue to claim damages for the period that Vonage was infringing, but no further. This might even lower the amount of damages awarded. That and Vonage gets to keep operating.
I saw this lawsuit as a cheap and dirty way for Verizon to work its way into Vonage, a
I think I speak for everyone... (Score:2)
pwn3d! (Score:2)
Vonage says it is NOT patent-related. (Score:5, Informative)
Note the end on the Ars article:
So supposedly it's just biz as usual.
I am a Vonage customer. I'm actually satisfied with it, despite all the negative reviews that other Slashdotters give it. It is still more reliable and higher-quality than my land line ever was. Verizon owns the physical lines in my part of New York. As Verizon's own linemen have told me, the switching equipment in my neighborhood is so old that it can't support caller ID, for example, and dial-up phone connections (in case of cable modem downtime) max out at 14.4k because of the fuzziness and static on the line. And Verizon has no plans to upgrade. Thanks. (Of course I can't use dial-up over Vonage, but I have an alternative backup -- wireless EVDO service, at near broadband speeds... sadly THAT is through Verizon because they have the best wireless service in my area.)
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Yeah, what you said.
I think of it this way... when ranked against tech companies, Vonage really isn't so good. When ranked against phone companies, it's a bit above average. Your choice.
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Then don't tell my modem! It can connect at 50K pretty reliably when my cable company is not having a bad packet day. Of course, I do this to test modems, not because I need dial-up. I even have my Vonage box working with my DirecTivo for its once every few months call out. (After a while, I get tired of it whining at me...)
What's been pissing me off lately is that some calls that are supposed to forward, don't. (I have calls forwarded to my cellphone, and because of the M
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Interesting point about the modem. Of course, I would use the modem in case my cable modem was down for some reason (== Vonage being down) so it's a moot point for me.
You also said "but at least with a landline, if you have a problem, Bellsouth (or whoever) can't point fingers at somebody else." That's not true where I lived. Verizon may own the lines but they frequently pointed to everybody and their mothers for problems. For example, the Verizon customer support line would even tell me that the lack
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I had vonage for ~1.5 years. I was quite happy with their service. Other than the fact that my internet would die when my 900KHz cordless phone would go off, everything else worked fine.
However...I had to move eventualy and so decided to cancel my vonage service.
On 3-4 different phone call attempts to their customer service (which appeared to be in India), they would intentionally hangup the phone on me after I had been on hold for over 45mins each time. The lin
The Truth about Analog vs. Digital phones (Score:1)
New: Can you [silence]me nononononow?
The whole case was BS (Score:1, Insightful)
Hop over your chinese firewall and talk to you
It does explain the declined call quality (Score:2)
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