And The Hits Keep On Coming For Vonage: Loses Another Patent Decision
from the ouch dept
Vonage is not having a very good week. Just after a jury sided with Sprint over Vonage in a patent dispute, the appeals court has affirmed the injunction against Vonage from the similar Verizon patent case that was decided earlier this year. The only small victory for Vonage is that the appeals court sent back the ruling on one of the three patents in question. Vonage is claiming that the ruling barely matters, since it's already developed a workaround for the other two patents. Of course, that's what they say -- not what Verizon or the courts have said. And, it still seems likely that Vonage is going to need to pay out quite a bit in terms of damages for the patents the court affirmed. Again, the point still stands from yesterday. Despite the court's rulings, these patents are highly questionable, with a tremendous amount of prior art. Even if you take as a given that the patents are valid, they had nothing to do with Vonage's success -- which was based on figuring out the right marketing and business models to attract users, not on the same technology that was obvious to everyone in the space. The telcos who are now suing Vonage couldn't (or didn't want to) figure out this model in order to protect their legacy voice business. To now force Vonage to pay those companies when it was the one who actually innovated shows the travesty of the current patent system.
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travesty
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Verizon & Patents
The US patent process is inept - but alas the political process to 'fix' it is both inept AND corrupt. I pray (if that's still allowed) that the Supremes get involved.
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Re: Verizon & Patents
The Patent Office is underfunded and understaffed of course
But the Supreme Court is absolutely clueless about patents and patent law.
Just read their recent decisions
They hurt more than they help
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I'm afraid I have the patent on praying and you will need to cease and desist until the proper royalty fees are paid.
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Re: Your patent on praying
Also (though the patent office clearly doesn't care about this) I think I can document some prior art - - - -
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Re: Re: Your patent on praying
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I don't get it.
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Re: I don't get it.
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Linking to your own article concerning highly questionable patents doesn't make it so. Of course Jeff Pulver would talk about this, he was an early investor.
Vonage now says they have a workaround, so they won't be shut down. My question is this. When you start a business, shouldn't you make sure you are not voilating other folks patents first? Wouldn't that be a good idea?
OK, I start a company, use other companies patented work and offer my service for half the price while at the same time taking out ads everywhere. Thats what you call innovation?
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Re:
Linking to your own article concerning highly questionable patents doesn't make it so. Of course Jeff Pulver would talk about this, he was an early investor.
You seem to be conveniently ignoring the REST of the prior art, not to mention that just because an investor in Vonage points out some prior art to Verizon's patents, that does not make the prior art invalid.
Linking to previous TD articles is fine, as those previous articles link to outside sources. There's no reason to rewrite everything...
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Re:
The patents are not on trial here. Trials have nothing to do with how valid/invalid a patent is. Trials determine infringement and assume that a patent is valid. In order for a patent to be invalidated, it has to be reviewed and retracted by the patent office, which can often take longer than a trial.
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Wrong again
Boy, you know nothing about patent law. If Vonage countersues for patent invalidity, the patents are definitely on trial. Patents do have a presumption of validity, but that does not mean that cannot be invalidated in court. If the patents really are bad patents, Vonage could have invalidated them using any number of tools in their arsenal.
If the patents are still deemed valid, that means either Vonage has some bad lawyers or the PTO actually did a good job.
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The jury was asked whether the patents themselves were valid.
If you have a problem with that statement, take it up with ZDNET
I would put a link to it, but Techdirt would then block the post.
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Re:
Not saying they would, (or wouldn't), just wondering why you say they would.
Curious minds need to know.
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Re: Re:
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To allow Vonage to use technology that they did not develop and not give any sort of credit to the maker of the technology is more of a travesty. Vonage may have innovated in a business model sort of way, but it did not invent or even improve the technology, and that is the crux of the problem. The patents' specifications explicitly state the technology that Vonage is using. The fact that Vonage could come up with a useful business model for the technology is great and all, but they did not come up with the invention; Verizon's assignor did. Vonage could easily have contracted for a license of some sort, but instead it stole the invention for its own benefit. That is what is wrong.
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