Surely they realized their patents might have been violated 7 years ago when everyone first heard of Vonage… But I guess it wasn’t worth it to protect their assets then.

That’s why patents should be like Trademarks. If you don’t vigorously protect it, you lose it.

Have you no concept of overly broad patents, prior art, or multiple similar patents in the system. In any case, Vonage shouldn’t be the one being sued – they are just using technology provided by other companies. That technology should be useable in good faith and if anybody should have been sued to start with it should be those who provided the technology that uses the overly broad Verizon patents.

But, people who truly invent things (like machine vision) feel like the rest of us – that the patent system is broken. For example, see http://www.advancedimagingpro.com/publication/article.jsp?pubId=1&id=90

“Nello Zuech, President of Vision Systems International, applauds Cognex and Symbol’s efforts. “It’s about time common sense prevailed,” says Zuech. “The users of machine vision have been held hostage and extorted by a guy who claims to have invented just about everything… In the case of machine vision, he corrupted the patent system by writing new patents and adding claims to his old patents as he read about applications of machine vision in the commercial press. If I had been writing patents instead of proposals as I was in the early 70s, most of his patents would have been invalid—and I was not alone at that time.”

Verizon shouldn’t have been given the patents in the first place.

What is funny or maybe sad is that they are some very bad corporate players who grew to the point that they can no longer invent anything significant. But they have lots of money, much of it obtained through theft of others’ intellectual property, they are incredibly arrogant, and they know how to be inventive with public relations. They are misleading the public by blaming their self inflicted litigation problems on the patent system. And they are systematically shipping both the capital they made from invention and our country’s intellectual capital to developing countries. They are milking America dry, and they want your help in finishing the job. You really need to wise up, because if people do not stop buying the propaganda the patent pirating transnational’s are feeding them you call all kiss you jobs and prosperity goodbye.

So who is at fault here? Vonage reminds me of a young Dell, Microsoft, or Cisco. None of them built their business on inventions. Rather they built a business on others’ inventions. In all these cases they got sued for taking liberties with other’s property.

I view Verizon as a lumbering dinosaur and personally think that the world would be better off without the old telecoms. Lets face the fact that telecoms are dieing, and they know it. They are going to fight with all they have. It will not save them but they are not ready to accept the fact that the business is changing in ways where they will have no place.

But Vonage either failed to check for patents relevant to their business or they intentionally took liberties with other’s property. Other VOIP providers say that they have no issues with Verizon. Is this because they did the patent clearance searches and then worked around the patents? Perhaps they invented and patented better means to deliver VOIP services?

The patent system is not broken, and the only companies with litigation crises are those who run fast and loose with others patent properties.

One last point, any engineer worth their salt can learn to read and understand patents. The differing opinions are driven by one group who knows what they are talking about and another who does not.

Ronald J. Riley,
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org – RRiley at PatentPolicy.org
Washington, DC
Direct (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 9 pm EST.

I prefer the early days of nascent auto manufacturing where Ford didn’t care about patents or who used his ideas or manufacturing techniques. Everyone benefited and the competitors waged a war to provide consumers with a better car. This lead to a period of mindscrambling innovation and creativity that arose out of such a short period of time…without Ford spending much time defending intellectual bull$hit. Verizon, enough. Start acting like a true competitor. I couldn’t stand Verizon when I had no choice before, and I’ve come to loath the empire even more. Simply, I’d give up my phone, TV and internet if Verizon were the only choice. Verizon et al…you disgust me.

“With respect to the patent litigation identified above [updated from 3 to 5 separately named cases], we believe that we have meritorious defenses against the claims. However, we might not ultimately prevail in these actions. Whether or not we ultimately prevail, litigation could be time-consuming and costly and injure our reputation. If any of the plaintiffs prevail in their respective actions, we may be required to negotiate royalty or license agreements with respect to the patents at issue, and may not be able to enter into such agreements on acceptable terms, if at all. Any limitation on our ability to provide a service or product could cause us to lose revenue-generating opportunities and require us to incur additional expenses. These potential costs and expenses, as well as the need to pay additional damages awarded in the favor of the plaintiffs could materially adversely affect our business.”

Interesting to note in hindsight “if at all” in this section.

Sprint, Rates Technology, Barry W. Thomas, Verizon and Klausner Technologies all have pursued patent litigation suits against Vonage dating back to 2005 which would be worth aggregating in your linked Wikia review.

Since its formation in 2001, Vonage holds 3 purchased patents, and 5 applications, but it appears correct to note that Vonage had no patented technology from its early formation days.

Also from the SEC S-1, Vonage had invested almost $500 million in marketing at the time of the IPO, but no firm R&D investments quantified to date in their 10-Q’s. They are rolled into the SG&A section, which is smaller than marketing in total.

A better question might be what Vonage really is, a VoIP re-selling company or a VoIP technology player? Perhaps that discussion will lead you to a different answer to the question “Why do we have a VoIP patent mess?” using Vonage as the poster child.

Try reading the article…the author was implementing the state of art at the time, so he should know if VoIP patents obvious at the time.

The people who made real advances generally don’t like junk patents. For example, do you link Lemuelson’s patents were junk or real advances?

e=mc^2 is a formula based on an observation of natural occurring phenomena. Such stuff is not patentable, and has never been patentable. The definition was described in the early 1970′s as “anything under the sun made by man”.

As for VoIP patents, read the claims to figure out what they’re trying to cover. The title won’t tell you. The abstract won’t tell you. The claims will.

Verizon is also in the company of these monopolists and also dozens of strong man dictators who value their $12/minute tarrifs for voice calls back to EU and US.

Does anybody know why Verizon is becoming a “Patent Troll”? Do they really think they will stop VoIP? It is going to become a PR nightmare for them.

Thanks for the post. Can you point me to a lawsuit at issue here:

They would have been unpatentable as little more than mathematical algorithms until lawsuits overruled the patent office’s distaste for method patents in 1999.