Vonage Barred From Using Verizon VoIP Patents

thefiremonk writes "Bloomberg reports that U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton has issued a permanent injunction against Vonage. The goal: to stop allowing customers to make calls to standard phone lines. 'U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton approved Verizon's request for a block today in Alexandria, Virginia. Hilton said he won't sign the order before a hearing in two weeks on Vonage's request for a stay. A jury found March 8 that Vonage infringed three patents and should pay Verizon $58 million.' Does this spell doom for the already troubled Vonage? "

So Much For Customer Service

[phinsxiii]

Once again Big Business wins and the customer get screwed.


Isn't Democracy wonderful?

:)

Aren't all?

[lenne]

Aren't all voip companies doing more or less the same?

How many ways are there to connect voip to pstn?

Leif

Re:

[antarctican]

It is yet again another perfect example of how patents actually hinder innovation rather than spur it. A sad day.

I haven't been following this but I'm not curious to dig deeper to see what exactly these patents are. As in, is it as simple as a patent on network->land line calls? And if so, that's not only an overly broad patent, but could mean the doom for the entire coip industry. Or even open source projects such as Asterisk. I certainly hope this patent turns out to be some very specific technolo

Re:

[GuyverDH]

Really?

Does Verizon pay every ma and pa phone shop who's lines they use passing Cell Calls to land lines?

I highly doubt it.

Re:

[URSpider]

Really?

Does Verizon pay every ma and pa phone shop who's lines they use passing Cell Calls to land lines?

I highly doubt it.

Why do you doubt it? Of course they pay them. Check out this recent story [techdirt.com] on a company that was making millions off of these payments by redirecting incoming calls back out over VoIP, basically a form of bit-laundering.

And, it's "whose," not "who's."

Re:

[phinsxiii]

Really?

What about the Billions of taxpayer dollars that the Bells received in the 90s to upgrade the infrastructure that they still haven't halfway finished? You remember fast access to every doorstep? Well that has only turned out to be limited to major metropolitan areas. I still can only get fast access to my doorstep through my cable company. Bellsouth has yet to provide DSL, and I live in a fairly large city.

No. This is pure greed. Vonage forced the Bells to reduce their pricing before they were

Re:

[don_bear_wilkinson]

[begin quote]
No. This is pure greed. Vonage forced the Bells to reduce their pricing before they were ready to compete, so Verizon is just going to sue Vonage out of existence. Vonage was already in dire straits. They will not survive this legal battle and that is what the Bells wanted.

The Bells do have a right to make a profit, but not at the expense of the customer.
[end quote]

Believe me, I am NOT a fan of greed. I HATE it, from deep in my heart. I honestly and passionately believe greed is the root of a

Re:So Much For Customer Service

[dgatwood]

How do you steal something that is nothing more than the IP equivalent of what HAM operators have been doing for decades [wikipedia.org]? It's just a simple medium change, same as any other medium change. The fact that Verizon was able to get a patent on such a breathtakingly obvious thing is appalling, and the fact that the patent was upheld, triply so. It is a completely obvious extension of something that has been done for many, many, many years. Hell, I seem to recall computer modems that could be adapted to do this sort of thing back in the 80s.

The fact is that this is just the old school telephone industry using lawsuits to protect their obsolete business practices and try to mask the fact that they've been charging line switching rates for packet switching long distance service for two decades. Verizon deserves to get their asses handed to them, and if Vonage is going to go under, it is the responsibility of other VoIP providers to prop them up so that they can continue this fight, for if it is settled in Verizon's favor, it will decimate the VoIP industry.

Either way, screw Verizon. Long distance communication is what video chat services are for, and they don't cost anything, unlike VoIP. I don't remember the last time I used a landline telephone regularly, VoIP or otherwise. Even VoIP is too expensive for what they actually provide. :-)

Re:

[mrchaotica]

That said, I think you are flat out wrong. It is not greed to;

1) want to make a fair return on your costs/investments

What investments? The public paid for the telephone infrastructure, not Verizon!

2) want to be paid for use of your infrastructure

The public's infrastructure, you mean.

3) want to make enough profits to repay investors, fund research, etc.

Bell Labs isn't run by the Bells anymore.

4) want to compete on a level playing field.

Are you kidding? Using patents and regulation to block competit

Re:

[Jim_Maryland]

I think you are looking at two very different problems here. The cost of using the network is different from the technology to connect to a network. Presumably Vonage has to pay a connection fee for the physical connection to phone networks and this should cover usage cost of the network. As for connecting to the network, there are probably a fairly limited number of ways to interface with the phone network and anyone looking to connect would reach a similar configuration. For the Universal Service Fund

Re:

[rainman_bc]

How is that? Shouldn't the phone company be properly paid for the use of its network?

I don't know about the US, but here in Canada all phone lines are public domain and the phone companies are licensed to use it.

I'll be it's the same in the US - otherwise you'd have a natural monopoly in telcos - no city is going to allow redundant phone lines all over their city so the telcos can compete.

Re:So Much For Customer Service

[mabhatter654]

but Vonage does pay for the lines. They pay to have "phone lines" to the demux box that down coverts from the network to phone company lines to make the calls. As well as for the network bandwidth they use.. fat pipes 24x7 cost thousands of dollars a month. The joke of the whole thing is that they are most likely using off-the-shelf phone company equipment turned around backwards... instead of binding 2-3 T1 INTO their company they are sending the phone calls back OUT in the proper format.... It's genius.

I find patent infringement hard to swallow though. This is all off-the-shelf equipment, the patents should have been paid for with the equipment purchase.. so maybe it's a software patent on moving the data type "phone call" from an internal network to the phone company network. Either way, the Phone company and equipment maker has been well paid... and they've found a technicality to sue on.

As far as the phone company not getting their "fair share", realize in most cases a phone call is only a 28.8k stream for them... and they pay "long distance" over the same pipes we use the internet for.... in other words typical long distance calling is ALREADY VOIP and customers are being raped for cost of voice (28.8k * $.15/min) compared to data (1Mb/S for $39/month). Phone companies need to adjust their models to better reflect the cost structure... perhaps we should pay more for the higher speeds (6mb) but less for basic (768k) and do away with POTS altogether.. it's a quick change of boxes at your house for most people.

Re:

[Brickwall]

They wanted to keep charging $30 a month just for the privilege of having a crappy old copper POTS line and massive long distance charges for each call.

Massive long distance charges? What planet do you live on? LD rates have been dropping for years. I remember when Vancouver to Toronto was $0.56/minute (and that's in 1980 dollars). Now that call is 3 cents a minute. So rates have dropped dramatically, especially when you consider inflation.

And if you don't want to play with Verizon, buy a phone card.

Re:

[dgatwood]

IMHO, 3 cents a minute is still massive when you consider that AIM audio chat offers the same quality for free. For that matter, long distance hasn't been line-switched for years, so why is there an initial connection charge on long distance calls? It doesn't cost the provider any more for the first minute as it does for the last. And why do I have to pay long distance charges when I call the adjacent city (in my county)? And why has the base rate gone up astronomically while the long distance fees drop

Re:

[jonbryce]

Well London to either Vancouver or Toronto, or for that matter Australia, China, etc is about $0.02 per minute, so that is way too expensive. Within Britain, long distance calls are about 5p ($0.10) per hour.

well

[mastershake_phd]

They better come up with a none-infringing way to send calls from the internet to a phone line. Maybe a speaker a phone and some duct tape?

Re:

[fermion]

I believe you are looking for an acoustic coupler. We had to use this back when AT&T made the phones.

Yet another reason for patent reform

[Overzeetop]

Actually, it's this kind of patent use (abuse) - restraint of trade - that should be forbidden. It should be prevented becuase of the monopoly and incumbent carrier status that Verizon holds on the wired telephone market.

They are not using the patents to forward the condition of man, but rather to choke off a competitor in an estabilshed industry with an (effectively) insurmountable cost of entry using traditional methods.

It's no surprise that Verizon is one of the top ten hated corporations.

Re:

[operagost]

They are not using the patents to forward the condition of man

That's not the purpose of patents. Patents are used to encourage invention by limiting the ability of others to copy the inventor's work during a limited period.

Re:Yet another reason for patent reform

[Cerebus]

Which part of "To promote the progress of science and useful arts" is unclear?

Re:

[Pollardito]

i'm not sure why you're reading so much into his motivations. i think he's just saying that the one particular patent "a method of translating calls between the Internet and standard phones" doesn't appear to be used by Verizon at all, and they're enforcing this patent purely to prevent anyone else from using that means to enter the phone industry.

Re:

[PPH]

That's not the purpose of patents. Patents are used to encourage invention by limiting the ability of others to copy the inventor's work during a limited period.

Exactly. That's the problem with patents as currently implemented. The US Constitution empowers Congress:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited
Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective
Writings and Discoveries;

So the exclusive rights granted to authors and inventors is subject to their

Re:

[Kenja]

OK.... so how big (in your opinion) does a company have to be before they should be forced to give away their research and Ip to competing companies?

Not saying I agree with the situation, but the problem is not Verizon enforcing their patents but the patent process itself.

Patent reform.... hell, just get rid of patents

[Teancum]

Every time this issue comes up, I have pleaded with nearly everybody to make a clear cut example where patents were actually useful to anybody outside of the legal community.

There is one and only one semi-useful function that patents actually serve: they document the historical development of technology in a systematic fashion. In other words, the USPTO is really a bunch of poorly disguised historians and nothing more.

I have known many individuals who have spent fortunes on developing patents, and I've bee

Re:

[Overzeetop]

Absolutely not. Verizon can have all the patents they want, they just can't use them as a way to prevent another carrier from offering a competing service to their monopoly service.

Personally, I don't think Macrovision should be allowed to enforce patents on the decoding of their protection schemes, as they are using them solely for restraint of trade and have no intent to produce commercial products with them.

I equate this to an automotive company having a patent on the use of gasoline for engines. Or Comc

Re:

[Overzeetop]

What part of "Permanent Injunction" don't you understand?

Re:

[Overzeetop]

Well slashdot hasn't duped this yet [slashdot.org], so I can understand how you missed it. Actually, it looks like a small-sample poll (100,000 votes), but they did manange to rank up there with the worst.

Juries

[morgan_greywolf]

This is what happens when you have technical cases decided by 12 ordinary citizens too stupid to get out of jury duty. It's why IBM doesn't want the SCO case to go to trial without a finding from the judge that it didn't infringe on any of SCO's copyrights. (If the summary judgement is granted and it does go to trial, the jury has to proceed on the idea that IBM hasn't violated any of SCO's IP.)

Verizon is just suing to keep Vonage -- and every other company offering a similar service -- from making it irrelevant in the home phone market. Which is exactly what's happening.

Re:

[operagost]

This is what happens when you have technical cases decided by 12 ordinary citizens too stupid to get out of jury duty.

I'm with you, dude. Voting is stupid too! Look at those idiots standing in line on election day! Better off playing WoW.

Re:

[Stiletto]

I think you are actually better off playing WoW on election day.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have an idiot serving as president today.

Re:

[Marillion]

1) There is no indication that a jury was involved. Trial by Jury is a right. It is not compulsory. Many corporate court battles take place without a jury because it reduces the risks associated with jurries

2) What the F***? 12 ordinary citizens too stupid to get out of jury duty? Some of us are happy to serve and protect your right to trial by jury. The next time a Big Media legal thug drags your ass into a court room, you should be happy that a "smart person" who supports the right of trial by jury

Re:

[morgan_greywolf]

1) There is no indication that a jury was involved. Trial by Jury is a right. It is not compulsory. Many corporate court battles take place without a jury because it reduces the risks associated with jurries

FTFA:

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton approved Verizon's request for a block today in Alexandria, Virginia. Hilton said he won't sign the order before a hearing in two weeks on Vonage's request for a stay. A jury found March 8 that Vonage infringed three patents and should pay Verizon $58 million.

BTW --

Re:

[Marillion]

In my haste, I missed the jury bit in the article

The Seventh Amendment [wikipedia.org] of the US Constitution says trial by jury in most civil cases is a right.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

My understanding is that the states typically don't guarantee you a jury trial unless there's a possible jail term at the end of your trial. A twenty dollar fine doesn't cut it :)

Re:

[terrymr]

I believe trial by jury is a right in any matter where more than $10 is involved.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Some of us are happy to serve and protect your right to trial by jury. The next time a Big Media legal thug drags your ass into a court room, you should be happy that a "smart person" who supports the right of trial by jury might actually decide in your favor.

Generally speaking, the only way you can get on a jury is to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that you do not know a fucking thing about the case in question. Lawyers don't want knowledgeable witnesses on the jury, whether they (the lawyers) are goi

anyone have a link with some actual meat?

[drinkypoo]

Like, for example, the patents being infringed?

What's the infringement?

[Rob T Firefly]

The aritcle is decidely non-technical, beyond saying the infringement was over "a technology," and "a method for allowing Internet calls to reach traditional phone lines." Anyone have any real details on what's being fought over?

Re:What's the infringement?

[interiot]

Here's the original 7 patents [ipurbia.com]... #6,430,275, #6,137,869, #6,104,711, #6,282,574, #6,128,304, #6,298,062, and #6,359,880.

It sounds like #6,430,275 (tiff [uspto.gov], pdf [pat2pdf.org], text/png [google.com]) is the one that's the VOIP/POTS bit.

So Long OSS VOIP

[mpapet]

As someone that has been working hard to develop some competency with VOIP serving, it seems that anyone trying to do anything with http://www.openser.org/ [openser.org] without voicemail or POTS services is royally screwed.

You can't touch it.

This one deserves a headline at http://www.chillingeffects.org/ [chillingeffects.org].

Anyone have any ideas as to how one can operate a VOIP server for free and still pay the bandwidth bill each month? I'm serious, I'm open to anything

Re:

[Svartalf]

Can someone just club the USPTO collectively to death for that one? What Vonage is doing is no different from the mobile phone companies are freaking doing with Cell service terminiation- and I can assure you they're not paying royalties for that process
nor is it something I'd consider patentable, really. Doing something counterintuitive that works better? That MIGHT be something
someone could make a case for patenting, even in software, but this? AAAAARGH!

Re:What's the infringement?

[Jason Pollock]

If it's 6,430,275, I personally developed the same class of product (PSTN/VoIP gateway with prepaid charging and authentication) in 98/99. We had been doing the same with ISUP and AIN variants even earlier.

It should appear obvious to any telecom's protocol engineer that this is possible. It is even encouraged by the protocols.

For example, INAP (ITU version of AIN in the patent), uses the same call model as ISUP, the circuit control protocol. ISUP and H.323 are both Q.931 protocols, therefore they also share the same call model. That makes it obvious (it was to us), that H.323 can be easily made to trigger an INAP call model. Obviously, the benefit is that this ensures that the applications can run unchanged on both the PSTN and the VoIP networks.

And H.323 has been around for a lot longer than this patent.

Once you understand that H.323 and ISUP are Q.931 variants, you see that all the work done to trigger IN applications on the various country and network ISUP variants is also prior art.

"One smart decision among many, many stupid ones."

[mmell]

I thought that was just Vonage's marketing hype, not their business model!

Yep.

[russotto]

If the order isn't stayed pending appeal, Vonage is dead; revenue drops to zero nearly overnight. So are all other independent VoIP providers, when Verizon gets around to crushing them.

A concrete manifestation of a patent system out of control.

Re:

[interiot]

There are companies with bigger pockets who make money off of connecting VoIP calls to the legacy voice network (eg. Comcast, Time Warner, in combination with their cablemodem service), and presumably they're concerned about the patent. Is it ever the case that a larger company provides legal assistance to a smaller company in cases like this? Or would Verizon never go after Comcast/Time Warner if they think they'd lose, and therefore it's actually in Comcast/TimeWarner's best interests to stand back and

Re:

[Undertaker43017]

It's likely, at least in TimeWarner's case, that they have cross licensed these patents with Verizon, and are not a "target".

Re:

[Billosaur]

So are all other independent VoIP providers, when Verizon gets around to crushing them.

But Verizon won't... they won't have to. By picking on the popular kid, that will make the less popular kids fall into line and pay Verizon some cash for their transgressions rather than be bled to death by lawsuits. This kind of nonsense will only stop if Verizon decides to take on Comcast or Optimum Online.

Re:

[cpu_fusion]

> A concrete manifestation of a patent system out of control.

Funny, I would have called it "extortion." But then I'm not a lawyer (yet).

Hopefully they are forced out of business

[mulvane]

Down with Vonage!! I had the service for 11 months. First 3 months was great, but then nothing but trouble after I deployed to the Gulf for 6 months. My wife tried to call them repeatedly to have it fixed and they kept blaming my ISP which after I got home I ruled out as it happened on my COMCAST, neighbors ATT, and Clearwire in local area. I could see one ISP being the problem, but not 3, and after I called again they said I wasn't qualified to make such assumptions. Funny, I can sure manage to make UHF/VHF, and SAT links and manage the LAN on a US Guided Missile Cruiser, but I wasn't technically smart enough to call the bullshit flag on the blame they focused on my ISP. Further, when the 10 month mark rolled around, I had military orders requiring me to move and at the time it was to a place I wouldn't have broadband, or hell, access at all, and they tried to pressure me into keeping the service and singing another year anyway. They just didn't get the fact that small islands sometimes don't have access. Then, they argued with me about how I owed them an early cancellation fee even though I was also canceling due to shitty service THEY couldn't fix. I had to end up also telling them a lie that I was not married, and I had no family who could make use of the account before they would close it. I had read horror stories at the time about people who had went over the 12 month period already and Vonage had refused to cancel the account, or had verbally said they would and the charges kept coming. I feared this so I even canceled the card. And low and behold, I started getting statements from my bank who issued a new card telling me about the activity that they were refusing.

I think you're at fault here.

[raehl]

You must have called the AOL customer service line by mistake.

Re:

[dattaway]

For me, Vonage had a good service, but they were too aggressive. I also had a well documented case against Vonage. Their service was good in my case, but cancelling was a problem that lasted a year. I quickly learned their customer service were script junkies who didn't have an option for "cancel." I may have been a test case for them to see how far people would take it. I ended up giving my card company a statement and a dispute. Then I called Vonage once again and it got into a long shouting match w

May? MAY!?!

[Svartalf]

Heh... I think they've mostly lost trust already- we just don't have alternatives in hand yet...

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, litigation just isn't necessary once we all have VoIP phones. That day is coming, albeit slowly. Sooner or later you'll just access people by DNS, instead of by phone number, making a VoIP call to them via IPv6. The telephone network as you know it is a strictly limited-time affair, and the cellular providers are the most scared because even 3G cellular data is SLOW AS HELL compared to, say, the current generation of DSL hardware, or WiMax, or basically anything else. I mean it's barely faster than sa

Re:

[jimicus]

otherwise the telephone industry may lose trust.

MAY lose trust?

I don't know about you guys in the US, but here in the UK I trust the average phone company about as far as I can throw them, their telephone exchange and all the fat arseholes who run the place.

Re:

[Laebshade]

I had Vonage for 3 years and cancelled after about 3 months of continued problems. While I feel for the people who have had problems with cancelling the service, I had none. I simply called up and spoke with a service manager (I think that's what they called them). There's the key: speak with a native english speaker. These people handle all financial dealings with customers. Although what I said may have had a key in cancelling my service: only had it for my ex.

Re:

[dattaway]

What you did may be the key. I gave Vonage's Investor Relations a letter about my experiences. The following week is when my bad experiences did a 180 degree turnaround. Everything was resolved.

The only reason why I left Vonage was that one of their competitors offered "anonymous call reject" and other features. I'm sure its a simple script, but surely someone patented these simple ideas. That's why we, the customers, have few choices and have to deal with all this bullshit.

I didn't hate Vonage until I

Re:

[dAzED1]

I had great service, worked well when my net connection worked (and my net connection was indeed flaky), but I still canceled after a month and a half for various complicated reasons. They happily canceled, told me to keep the router, and said if I changed my mind to give them a call again. Was absolutely painless.

My (true) anecdotal story conflicts with yours. Neither shows a trend.

Re:

[3vi1]

I've been using them for over a year now. I don't know how hard (or not) it is to quit, as I've had nothing but great service. Sorry to hear about all the problems you had, but they've been great to me.

At any rate, I don't think you want them to go under based on Verizons patents. If they do go under, let it be due to customer reaction, not because of stupid patent abuse that will basically kill every VoIP provider.

-J

These patents can't be valid

[spectro]

"A method of translating calls between the Internet and standard phones, call-waiting features and wireless handsets"

- So they have a patent on transcoding from/to VoIP?, there's got to be some prior art on that
- Call waiting?... are you kidding me?
- Wireless handsets?, how does vonage infringe that?, VoIP got nothing to do with wireless handsets.

Vonage needs to hire themselves some real lawyers, Boies seems pretty good at dragging lawsuits forever.

Re:

[russotto]

Remember, for the purpose of demonstrating prior art, the prior art has to be pretty much exactly the patented invention. However, for the purpose of demonstrating infringement, the alleged infringer's product just has to be close. This is a ridiculous state of affairs.

Skype

[rebmemeR]

How could this affect Skype?

Vonage's official response

[rGauntlet]

Via a Press Release on their site: http://pr.vonage.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=2 35198 [vonage.com]

One interesting tidbit:

"We are confident Vonage customers will not experience service interruptions or other changes as a result of this litigation," said Mike Snyder, Vonage's chief executive officer.
.
.
"Our appeal centers on erroneous patent claim construction, and we remain confident that Vonage has not infringed on any of Verizon's patents - a position we will continue to vigorously assert in federal appeals court," said Sharon O'Leary, Vonage's executive vice president, chief legal officer and secretary. "Vonage relied on open-standard, off-the-shelf technology when developing its service. In fact, evidence introduced in court failed to prove that Vonage relied on Verizon's VoIP technology, and instead showed that in 2003 Verizon began exploring ways to copy Vonage's technology," she added.

I'm still hedging my bets

[ElForesto]

And this press release is NOT going to keep me from looking at transferring my phone service Real Soon Now(TM) to another provider. As much as I like Vonage, I'm not going to ride this roller coaster of not knowing if or when my phone service will go off thanks to a company I've never done business with.

Re:

[Col. Klink (retired)]

You could switch to another VoIP provider, but don't think for a minute that Verizon won't target them next. Or you could just go back to Verizon and help fund their terror war against VoIP.

Re:

[ElForesto]

Oh, my options are *much* worse. I'd have to look at service from Qwest. *shudder*

Is the injunction legal?

[RingDev]

Seeing as how Vonage is required by law to connect callers to traditional 911 call centers (over standard phone copper) is the injunction, baring Vanage from connecting VoIP calls to POTS calls legal if it prevents those calls?

-Rick

Re:Is the injunction legal?

[cdrudge]

There are many technical details why I think the injunction was granted but a stay will also be issued. You point out one very good one just because millions currently use VoIP. There also would be catastrophic damage done to Vonage if the stay was granted but minimal damage to Verizon (and what damage could be recouped) if the stay was granted but later lifted.

yipee

[tomstdenis]

millions will be without phones soon!

Yeah, anarchy! I hope that was the intent of the injuction.

Tom

Stupid question here...

[Z00L00K]

aren't the carriers required to provide access to 911, regardless?

Anyway - nothing will actually stop any off-shore our out-of-country IP phone services unless that kind of services are blocked in the broadband network, and that may also prove both inefficient and causing a stir.

A secondary problem that I have seen is that a majority of all VoIP to analog boxes are bound to a service provider. That actually limits the development of VoIP today since the users aren't able to change operator unless they b

Re:

[dabraun]

That said, the boxes are cheap ($50), far less expensive than the new cell phone often needed to switch wireless providers. It's not much of a barrier.

Just a thought

[Cauchy]

Have any of us bothered to look at the patents? Are they good and valid? Did Verizon truly invent something, and thus, perhaps, because of their investment, deserve some level of protection against theft in exchange for them contributing to the overall body of knowledge? Perhaps these patents are bogus, but I haven't seen anyone in this discussion yet attack Verizon/the PTO on the merits of the patents.

I agree that the patent system is broken, but, as I've said before, patents are more important to the little guy than the big guy. Without patents, if I as a little person invent something, there is nothing to stop Microsoft or IBM or some GE from copying my invention. Then, it just becomes a matter of who can out market who, and the little guy will lose this battle.

Re:

[jacquesm]

I had a primitive voip-pots gateway back in oh... 95 or so, hacked with speak-freely and some
old soundcard hardware. Worked pretty good too !

j.

Re:

[Cauchy]

However, are the patents about the process of VOIP, or are they some specific implementation aspect? VOIP as a concept may be covered by prior art or obviousness, but is the lawsuit about something more specific like a compression scheme or something?

Re:

[DogDude]

Have any of us bothered to look at the patents? Are they good and valid? Did Verizon truly invent something, and thus, perhaps, because of their investment, deserve some level of protection against theft in exchange for them contributing to the overall body of knowledge? Perhaps these patents are bogus, but I haven't seen anyone in this discussion yet attack Verizon/the PTO on the merits of the patents.

By "us", do you mean the kids and geeks who read Slashdot, as opposed to the professional patent attorn

Considering...

[Svartalf]

...that I've seen the quality of "professional" IP counsel up close, I can tell you that many of them
aren't any better at it than we are, believe it or not. I've got one of the better lawyers in the field
as my patent attorney, and he's razor sharp and what meets your apparent picture of them. The previous
joker, also a lawyer at the Law Firm we retained, heh... Many, VERY many of them only pretend to know
what is and isn't viable or not. If I were Vonage, I'd have fired their litigators and got better one

Re:

[Svartalf]

They're intrinsically garbage, tying "internet" to something that's prior art and basically done for
mobile services already.

Patents are for little guys? HA!!!

[bigtallmofo]

patents are more important to the little guy than the big guy. Without patents, if I as a little person invent something, there is nothing to stop Microsoft or IBM or some GE from copying my invention.

Patents have two purposes:

1. Defensive: Have enough patents, if someone sues you for violating a patent, sue them back for violating one of yours.
2. Offensive: Keep a competitor out of the market by suing them.

Neither of these help the little guy for one simple fact - he's unable to compete with th

Transition to Verizon?

[LoadStar]

The primary thing I care about is uninterrupted service, at my current service and price level, with my current telephone number.

If Verizon intends to squish Vonage, they had better be completely prepared to seamlessly transition me to their service, at my current price and service level. If they are willing and able to do that, I'm OK with it. (Well, I'm not thrilled with this abuse of patent law, but I can't do much about that myself.)

Is there anyway I can contact the court system and have them consider t

Patent seems too obvious

[Cyphertube]

I hate Verizon to begin with for SO many reasons. So I'll put that up front.

That said, reading through the patent and the claims, it doesn't really look like anything all that original. The concept of translating POTS to IP to POTS had already existed by 1999. As far as I recall, Sprint, MCI, UUNet, and such were already engaged in that, as was good old AT&T. As for a public subscriber system, no, but internally I do believe they already had that tech in place.

Additionally, Verizon envisioned a PC usi

Patent 6430275

[Dan Stephans II]

I quickly read through the patent that appears to be at issue here (6430275) and I don't think it's purely the connection from a VOIP connection to a PSTN/POTS line (although that's covered I don't think it passes muster from a non-obviousness/prior art standpoint). The meat of this patent deals with call tracking and billing (starting at around page 5) and to me it stands out as the most reasonable area to pursue vonage. I could be wrong too. =) Nothing in the application struck me as terribly original.

So Vonage will be destroyed by...

[suitepotato]

...a government that granted a known abusive monopoly which they themselves helped to create, ineffectively control, and are now helping to reestablish, because the stunningly obvious idea of sending digitized voice from a network to a phone system was given a patent.

For about two months in 1984 I worked with a couple friends on the idea of using the Covox Voicemaster as the basis of creating such a system. So stunningly obvious is not enough. Let's try amazingly hugantical ginormously stunningly obvious.

BT

Covox Voicemaster!

[ChaosMt]

Oh my!!! That's a blast from the past! I haven't heard that term is SO long. I spent hours trying to write a voice recognizion system that would capture all your phonemes and pitch, and match it by playing the same phoneme and pitch of someone else's voice. With the commodore 64, you can understand why I didn't go very far in that effort. Good Times. Thanks for the memories of '88.

What are the contents of the patents?

[AK Marc]

As I was thinking about it, many companies are using VoIP now. Cisco AVVID and such have gotten some market share. These have VoIP phones that talk to regular phone lines. AT&T and other cable companies have VoIP over their cable plant to provide phone service. If VoIP to PSTN is all owned by Verizon, then an entire market will be gone. If it is a specific implementation of VoIP, the Vonage will have some serious work to do in two weeks. So, is it just Vonage, or are many Asterisk servers illegal

Prior Art?

[Thumper_SVX]

Prsuming this is related to the VoIP->POTS connection patent (which would be one of the few that I would consider a relatively legitimate patent), then may I point out that there's plenty of prior art out there. One prime example is Net2Phone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net2Phone) which was a company founded in 1996 to provide precisely this service. I remember using it circa 1996 or 1997 as a way to make transatlantic calls easily and cheaply. It worked. It wasn't perfect... hell it was barely even go

"Tech Qualified" Juries (a la "Death Qualified")

[joe_n_bloe]

The average juror is profoundly tech-ignorant, particularly because many students and "intellectual" jurors are eliminated during voir dire. Jurors can be disqualified for cause when they are expert in an area that is relevant to the trial because they may outthink or second-guess expert witnesses, in effect testifying during deliberations.

I don't know how to get around the problem that in highly technical trials, jurors are selected so that they have no way to judge the facts of the case. Juries are suppo

$58 million

[Ant P.]

In VerizonDollars(tm), that's almost enough to buy a PS3!

Re:

[morgan_greywolf]

Cable companies are offering great bundles on their digital phone service bundled with high-speed Internet and digital cable. Comcast and Bright House Networks both offer service that competes with Vonage on price, but not on features. If I had to jump ship, that's where I'd go.

(Disclosure: I've been a Vonage customer for more than 2 years, but I did turn down the IPO.)

Re:

[daeg]

Brighthouse certainly doesn't compete on price OR features. I pay about $30.15 a month with Vonage for unlimited nationwide (and some other countries that I don't care about). Bright House, for Tampa, is $39.95 *plus* fees, which according to a BHN rep, are about $8/month on $40, or around $48/month. You can get "Florida-wide" coverage for $11 less, but you have to pay another $4 for simple voice mail. Bright house, according to reps, doesn't allow simultaneous rings, e-mailed voicemail messages. According

Re:

[dabraun]

I pay Vonage $15/mo for phone service. There's no way that Comcast competes with this on price.

Re:

[meatspray]

Verizon offers voicewing, direct vonage replace, equivalent pricing, sameish features.

http://www22.verizon.com/ForYourHome/VOIP/VOIPHome .aspx [verizon.com]

Re:If Not Vonage, Then Who?

[jtn]

You realize, of course, if Vonage is unsuccessful in having a stay granted and cannot develop a technical work around and thus departs from the marketplace, Verizon will become emboldened to press lawsuits against other voice providers using VoIP-to-PSTN gateway technologies? Goodbye Packet8, goodbye Broadvoice, goodbye VoicePulse...

It would seem the only solution in the end is to entirely bypass the legacy PSTN system and encourage the people you call to switch to a VoIP solution so no calls are terminated by Verizon.

Re:

[rindeee]

Damn straight (flash back to the late 80's). Seriously, this could really suck. I'm a happy customer of both Telasip and Axvoice. The trickle-down effect that this could have is pretty serious. IANAL, but in this case I sort of wish I was so that I could understand this better. Crap crappity crap!

Re:

[GWBasic]

It would seem the only solution in the end is to entirely bypass the legacy PSTN system and encourage the people you call to switch to a VoIP solution so no calls are terminated by Verizon.

I'm getting tempted to refuse to talk on anything but free VOIP. Skype video works perfect for free international calls, so why should I PAY to talk to someone else?

Re:

[wizbit]

I have Vonage, and this story obviously worries me quite a bit. But your point about Verizon misses the mark for its other services - Verizon are also providing competition in other areas (eg, cable TV). Comcast is the undisputed king in my area (Philly) but I am seriously considering switching to Verizon's TV service after seeing their lineup and pricing. Not to mention, I don't have many options here (no view of the southern sky = no satellite TV) and I'm tired of giving my money to the local monopoly - o

Re:

[wizbit]

Verizon also employs plenty of people in the region. Bell Atlantic's headquarters was in Philadelphia practically from birth until the merger (90's?)

My major beefs with Comcast:
- Constant rate hikes
- Local monopoly on home sports coverage
- Channels disappearing from their analog lineup
- Pretty steep internet and phone rates

My experience with Verizon:
- Decent service
- Cheaper internet

There was a recent /. article describing the installation for their FIOS TV service, and it blew me away. Tech spending hours

Re:

[nsayer]

We need a "-1 wrong" mod.

The quote is, indeed, said by Arthur Carlson. After all, it was HIS idea to drop the turkeys from the chopper.

Re:

[Eccles]

Blame the RIAA. "WKRP.." hasn't made it onto DVD (last I checked) due to music licensing issues.

Re:

[chill]

Rejoice, for the time is nigh!

Official DVD release date is April 24, 2007 according to Amazon. Season One, anyway.

http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B000MXPE6U [amazon.com]

Re:

[ehrichweiss]

It realy does seem to be overly broad that only 'Verizon' is allowed to do VOIP to POTS? Wouldn't every single VOIP provider be screwed by this????

I was wondering about this myself. For one, doesn't the VOIPPOTS get handled mostly by the hardware? VOIP data->audio signal->telephone line? I fail to see how VOIP comes into play other than what it does best, de/encoding the data into/from audio; run a hardwire from your speaker and mic on your VOIP to a telephone and that's basically what they're clai

Re:

[ehrichweiss]

ooops, that should say "VOIP-to-POTS"..I had accidentally marked it as an html tag.