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Verizon sues Vonage over VOIP patents

biz.yahoo.com — Vonage announced today that it has been served with a patent infringement lawsuit

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 20, 2006

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  • thatsiebguy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10If only you could still send Telegrams.
  • radison2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Next stop.....sue slingmedia. You suck Verizon.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8you knew the telcos were not going to let voip stand, especially with the FCC in 1 hand and the government in the other, they are the unstoppable machines now. Once they get the FCC and gov in on VOIP and regulate the hell out of it, it will be all over for the "savings"
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8The patents Verizon is basing their lawsuit off of are features like call waiting, voice mail, caller ID among others. All together there are nine different patents that will most likely not hold up in court, but that's not the point of this lawsuit. Verizon is playing dirty with it's largest VoIP competitor and it may just succeed.

    Just another of many reasons not to use Verizon.
  • thatsiebguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Patent Lawsuits - The ONLY way to make money these days..
  • nerddiver, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Basically hitting them while they are down.
    Another Yahoo article was a bit more informative: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060619/bs_nm/telecoms_vonage_verizon_dc_3
    What is interesting is that it mentions Vonage IPO problems with investors and that there are a lot of VOIP offerings currently on the market. So are they now all targets of Verizon?
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Oh! ...and the hits keep comming.

    ...somebody send a telegram to fscked company; I think we have a winner.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5If Creative can get patent for a hierarchical menu system, then you can get a patent for anything. Patents were meant for things like the light bulb. This is just disgustingly out of hand.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6We call them "electronical-mails" now. Much has changed since the days of the teleo-graph.
  • mofomojo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5You can't patent the transfer of audio over Internet, can you? I mean, it's basically just another form of data transfer, unless Verizon had a patent on the recieving hardware, which I doubt.

    Anyways, I'm going to RTFA, it probably isnt worth it.
  • dustyshadow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Anyone have a link to the actual patent?
  • nacs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Can Vonage's stock sink any lower?

    Here's the 3 month performance of the stock:
    http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=VG&t=3m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
  • cduquette, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4More proof the US Patent system is broken? One of the previous stories someone put up a link to the book Freedom of Expression which discusses patents and copyrights. I suggest you guys check out the full text at http://kembrew.com/books/
  • sleepless, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Might as well throw Cisco into the mix because Cisco makes the equipment that Vonage end users use. Strange because Cisco/Linksys bought the company and locked down the little gizmo after a years worth of cat/mouse games with hackers. Luckily you can still buy one of those nifty unlocked ATA units.... works great :-) Bought one for my dad for father's day last year.
  • evilgod69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4i have to agree with you about the patents not holding up in court. to memory, patents have to be unique... not 2 old ideas slapped together. hell, their idea is just transferring one idea over to a newer technology.

    i don't see how those patents even got granted in the first place, shows you how ***** up the American patent system is.
  • kindrobot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4SHAME! Shame on you, Verizon. The minute my contract is over (soon) with you, I'll be switching. Bad.

    Too bad, too. Your customer service and coverage was getting better. You HAD a happy customer.

    Not that they care about one guy's cell phone. But I'm sure I'm not alone.
  • r3zonance, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"If Creative can get patent for a hierarchical menu system, then you can get a patent for anything."

    I'm no fan of Creative, but there patent wasn't about the hierachical menu system itself. It was actually about the way that the hierarchical menus are built dynamically from meta-data within the files, in relation to a portable music playing device.

    I think this patent is one of the reasons why the iPod doesn't actually work that way. You have to sync to iTunes which transfers a specific subset of the iTunes music and database onto the iPod. All song information comes from iTunes, rather than the song metadata, hence no drag-and-drop of music.

    But I'm sure Verizon, like Creative, are just hoping for an out of court settlement, regardless of whether their patent does actually cover the technology employed or not.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It bounced like a rubber chicken @12; there should be another harmonic somewhere ~@6 before it finally goes tango-uniform.
  • shmatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2vonage does sucks a little, but verizon is pure evil
  • briangig, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4this is great news for the stockholders!!
  • zimm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Telcos are scared of voip. This is an excellent way to kill it too. doesnt even need to be valid to hurt vonage.

    they are so screwed!

    right along with all the ipo shareholders.
  • deathbringer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1as wifi gears up for mass distribution accross all of toronto in novemeber, and many other cities, I think Voip is far from disapearing. it's ABOUT to become HELL for every single cellphone provider.
  • HMTKSteve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Good link.

    When I posted this story this morning I had just heard about it on the radio and there were not many stories on the web yet.
  • Daz_Genetic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I pay $15 a month for 500 free US/Cananda minutes that I never use, unlimited incoming calls, as well as calls to the UK for only 3 cents a minute. I don't see how that pricing is off target at all.

    Sure, there are solutions that let me use my computer in a pay-as-you-call fashion. I'm sure they would probably work out cheaper, but personally I prefer to use a regular phone in a freely provided adapter that doesn't require my computer to be turned on all the time.
  • tokyopimp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2No you're not alone, because I use Vonage, and have Verizon Wireless and this just pisses me off.

    The fact that Verizon is such a huge company, that is pissed off at a small VOIP (relativley) company. And instead of trying to compete, they go and sue em. They better sue my local cable company to because they have a VOIP service, with caller ID, and call waiting, etc.

    Stuff like this makes me want to email Verizon and threaten that I would be cancelling the service. But in the back of my mind I think. That's like telling a the manager of you're local wal mart that you'd never shop it again. Like it really matters to them. Although for some reason, I bet a manager of a wal mart would care more than some Verizon CEO.
  • HMTKSteve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Patents "used" to have to be unique... Then they started allowing patents with minor changes to existing patents...

    i.e.

    Patent #1 Call Waiting on a POTS line.
    Patent #2 Call Waiting on a VOIP line.

    Even though both patents do the same exact thing, because they are implemented on different sytems (POTS/VOIP) they are considered seperate inventions in their own right. I don't agree with that idea but the courts and lawyers do...
  • HMTKSteve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1you can also check this prior Digg -> http://digg.com/technology/Law_profs_create_comic_book_to_explain_copyright_law
  • gadgetuk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Ref: mofomojo above
    No, that part can't be patented because it's an open standard. Vonage uses SIP for call setup, RTP for the data flow and G729 (I expect) for the voice compression. All of those are public domain and can be used by anybody - but that's not what Verizon are suing for. They are suing for extra "features" such as callwaiting, conference calls, music on hold etc... the open standards don't describe those but they are obviously existing concepts in the old-school PABX world that were always going to be translated into IP Telephony at some point. As long as Vonage developed their own solutions for those features and didn't steal Verizons then they have nothing to worry about.
  • bradleyland, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0*****. This really sucks. I like my Vonage phone service a lot, and I'm not looking forward to paying $50/month for phone service again.
  • SniperSlap, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Vonage sucks. Totally off target for pricing.

    Check your local alternative phone carrier or long distance provider. See if they have a VoIP offering. WAYYYYY cheaper.
    (Canada, Primus. Wicked deals on good quality IP phones)

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