Vonage pays Sprint $80m to square patent dispute
One down...
Vonage is to pay $80m to Sprint to settle a infringement case over Voice over Packet (VOP) patents held by Sprint.
Vonage is paying $35m for the past use of the technology, $40m for a full paid future license and $5m for prepayment of services.
Last month, a Kansas jury found that Vonage had infringed six Sprint patents and awarded the telecoms giant $69.5m in damages and a five per cent royalty on revenues. Today's, larger, settlement now means that it has Sprint off its back for good.
In March, Vonage lost another patent infringement case against Verizon. A US jury awarded Verizon $58m and five per cent royalties. Vonage was denied the chance to appeal. We assume Verizon will try to wring Vonage until its pips squeak.
In the past Vonage said it could afford to pay fund both settlements. But the company remains heavily lossmaking. It needs to get more customers pronto. ®
COMMENTS
Call me
Call me when they sue packet 8 or comcast voip . Both are large companies, that do no use the disputed patents .
Look at this way. In the US the cable companies have done every thing they to bar telcos from entering the market. You the telcos would love to sticK it to the cable companies for revenge, yet they have not gone after them cause the cable companies did develop their own technology .
I'm no fan of the telcos since my company does compete with them. But the fact is other viop providers do not use those patents. This will not be the death of VIOP
I guess it would suck
To suddenly realize you needed to do RnD on something you thought was a commodity like switches. Such is business in duopoly land Verizon and ATT I would gladly see them both choke on it but they seem to be in a very comfortable position.
Patents suck
A world-wide patent overhaul is long overdue. Too many companies simply exist to litigate, safe in the knowledge that even if their claim is rather flaky, they will be probably be offered a settlement anyway... Win win situation.
I think I'm going to patent the binary system. Then you can ALL watch out :-)
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