Vonage Loses VoIP Case With Verizon

cdrudge writes "A federal jury on Thursday said Vonage Holdings Corp. violated 3 of 5 patents of Verizon Communications Inc. and ordered the upstart Internet-phone company to pay $58m in damages as well as 5.5% in royalty fees per month per customer. Verizon said it would seek an injunction to block Vonage from using its patented technology. The jury did reject Verizon's claim of $200m in damages and that Vonage deliberately violated Verizon's patents. As you might expect, Vonage said it would appeal the decision and seek a stay if an injunction is granted. Judge Claude Hilton set a hearing for March 23 on whether to grant an injunction."

Comments

Sooo.. jury nullification went out with racism?

[plasmacutter]

I don't get it..

i havent seen any stories about any cases of good old fashioned "jury nullification" since the civil rights era when it was used to protect racist groups and institutions...

i don't get it.. it's ok to use jury nullification to beat up on african americans but its not to tell a near monopoly "no, we won't allow you to destroy one of your very few competitors"?

I think we need to start a new biggotry movement that somehow involves monopolistic patent trolls.. then we'll see some action.

Re:5.5% in royalty fees per month per customer?

[BronsCon]

How is Vonage supposed to have any revenues if an injunction is imposed?

5.5% is a drop in the bucket when overhead is low and you're stealing someone else's R&D.

I suppose they could write some new code that doesn't infringe on the patent, but how would Verizon have any claim to the revenues?

They wouldn't.