Vonage Continues To Settle Patent Disputes... With Everyone But Verizon
from the that-one-is-personal dept
Just a few days after settling with Sprint over a patent dispute, Vonage has also settled a patent dispute with a small company called Klausner Technologies. It looks like Vonage is really trying to clear the decks of these pesky patent lawsuits -- which still seem rather petty and against the purpose of the patent system. However, it doesn't look like Vonage is anywhere close to settling in its other big patent lawsuit battle. Instead, it's asking the courts to rehear its patent case against Verizon. This really is a shame. While Vonage has faced a variety of struggles on the business front, it was the company that was able to bring VoIP to the consumer market in a way that no other company was willing to do. It's unfortunate that rather than being able to take the service and the company to the next level, it now has to spend so much time and money battling over patents. The technology behind VoIP was nothing special. People had talked about if for ages. What held back VoIP was having the bandwidth to support it and a convincing marketing campaign that showed how easy it was to switch to VoIP while making it seamless with an existing phone system. Vonage was the ones to innovate here -- and now they need to pay up over a bunch of bogus patents.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: patents, settlement, voip
Companies: klausner, sprint, verizon, vonage
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Vonage did not innovate
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Vonage did not innovate
You seem confused over the definition of innovation. Innovation is about bringing an idea to market successfully. Vonage *did* innovate. Innovation is not about the technology. Technology is merely a piece of the puzzle.
And, it's the patent office that clearly didn't do their homework. There was a ton of prior art on the patents in question, not to mention that they were quite obvious ideas when the patents were filed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
in all your reports (if i can call them that) that i've viewed, i've yet to hear/read where you have stated that given patent is good, or unique...
so tell us, ole wise one, just what patents do you look at that are unique, where one who's skilled in the art wouldn't say, "oh... that's just a natural progression, and not unique at all"....
i'm off the opinion that a few things are truly unique, out of this world, really mind blowing.. .a few are blatant, come on.. never should have been stated verbally because they're so bad... and the rest are in the middle...
you appear to be a really angry young man, and perhaps you have never had a patent.. as one who has been involved in a few patents, most of the work was somewhat derivative of others, but with a slight/subtle twist.
and yeah, we worked damm hard to get to that level.
peace...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
vonage
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Vonage did not innovate
Apparently you are the one that is confused as to the definition of what "innovation" is. Innovation, as per American Heritage Dictionary, is "the act of introducing something new." If VoIP has been around for as long as you say it has, then Vonage did not introduce anything new; all Vonage did was bring it to the marketplace. Bringing it to the market only makes it accessible. That's called successful marketing, not innovation.
And, it's the patent office that clearly didn't do their homework. There was a ton of prior art on the patents in question, not to mention that they were quite obvious ideas when the patents were filed.
If the patent is so damn obvious, why can't a post-KSR court find its invalidity? Just because you think it's obvious and there is a lot of prior art that talks about it does not make it obvious in the eyes of the law. The fact that Vonage did not appeal it's validity is prima facie evidence that Vonage thought Verizon's patent was valid. Apparently Vonage disagrees with you.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
read a little deeper on innovation
is the development of new marketing methods with improvement in product design or packaging, product promotion or pricing.
product promotion is what Vonage did, better than AT&T or Verizon
i had 'em both...Vonage was the best
and i am waiting for Comcast to get nailed for patent stuff
i believe their Digital Voice is in fact VOIP, stripped of the inet requirement..i also had Digital Voice, it sucks, too
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: read a little deeper on innovation
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]