Vonage is not allowed to sign up new customers while it appeals a court ruling that it infringed three Verizon patents. This is the price the VoiP telephony provider must pay for gaining some breathing space in its appeal against an injunction from using technology "owned" by Verizon.

Vonage asked the trial judge to reconsider the ban. Vonage lawyer Roger Warin said the ruling is "like cutting off oxygen as opposed to a bullet in the head [which would] in effect slowly strangle Vonage," he said, Bloomberg reports. The firm is certain to appeal this ruling, the newswire says.

Vonage says it used "open-standard, off-the-shelf technology when developing its service" and that the court evidence failed to prove otherwise. ®

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