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The End for Vonage?
TheRealSCA writes "The latest in Verizon vs. Vonage is in. The judge has basically stopped Vonage from accepting new customers. From the article: 'A judge issued an injunction Friday that effectively bars Internet phone carrier Vonage from signing up new customers as punishment for infringing on patents held by Verizon. Vonage's lawyers said the compromise injunction posted by U.S District Judge Hilton is almost as devastating as an injunction that would have affected Vonage's 2.2 million existing customers. "It's the difference of cutting off oxygen as opposed to the bullet in the head," Vonage lawyer Roger Warin said.'"
Our "intellectual property" system at work for you, ensuring innovation and -- as a nice side effect -- severely restricting competition in the marketplace. Hip Hip Hooray
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Whooo-hooo, wooo hoo-hoo!
Whooo-hooo, wooo hoo-hoo!
Whoo-hoo-hoo, oooh-oooh...oops.
Well at least I can watch TV this weekend without having to watch any more of those annoying Vonage commercials...
Coldmoon over Dark water...
Patent infringement is NEARLY always about one big guy versus another big guy -- or a big guy versus a little guy. How often do patents actually help individuals rather than mega-conglomerates? Even if you have a small business with various patents, can you afford to protect them in court?
Vonage lived by the sword -- they themeselves believed in patents. While I feel this judgment is counter-market, it doesn't cause as much damage as patents do in general. The idea that someone can monopolize the thoughts, motions or creations of another individual is ridiculous, especially in the multitude of patents we all know are ridiculous.
So be it. Whenever anyone who uses patents loses a patent war, they get what they deserve. I feel no pain for Vonage, nor anyone who decides to base their businesses on forcing other businesses not to compete in a certain way.
Rest in pieces, Vonage. Maybe Verizon will be next.
I think that Verizon is going to become a lot more interested in negociating with Vonage after this ruling. Why? Because if Vonage goes bankrupt, Verizon is likely to get squat in bankruptcy court. They don't have a lot of physical assets. They have a customer base - a loyal one. How many Vonage customers, having already switched from an RBOC, are going to switch BACK voluntarily?
Verizon viewed this as a way to get a piece of a growing market without having to invest anything. tey were going to use the patent to force Vonage to charge a "Verizon Tax" on their customers, which would make the service less attractive to users and maybe send somefolks back to the RBOC's - not to mention the fat licensing fees. But the judge may have killed the goose that lays the golden eggs.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
(to the tune of, woo woo, wo woo woo, from the vonage commercial)
woo woo, we got sued!!!
woo woo, we got sued!!!
woo woo, we got sued!!!
woo woo, woo woo,
woo woo, we got sued!!!
Bye Bye!
I quickly cast Mage Armor, do a tumble check to get out of the room without being skewered, then unleash a lightning bolt on his armor wearing ass!
So, let's play this game - we'll even name it something like China. You the player spend oh 5 years researching and creatnig some neato' keen scientificly designed product but you don't Patent it because well you just don't roll that way. So you bring this thing to market and it's really kewl but it's kind of expensive because afterall you have all those years of R&D to pay for and a family to feed. 2 months after having released your neato' keen device to market sales sharply drop. Gee, why is that? Oh wait, someone else is playing the game too. Only they are playing it a little different. Seems they were one of your very first customers only instead of using your product they took it apart, duplicated the pieces, and are now making them too - for 1/4 your asking price. They paid nothing for R&D other than the time spent reversing your product and because they have no R&D tail to pay for they aren't deep in the red like you were when you started. No patent so you have no way to fight them - now what? Two months is actually not a crazy estimate either BTW, hell these days you're likely to hand them the plans to manufacture your precious widget anyway. 5mins after the plans hit their desk they are being duped. Worse they might even run the production line double time - you get the products built during the day, they sell the products they built at night. Whoops, how do you fix that exactly? Think this through....
The patent system right now SUX, I'll grant that. However it doesn't suck because the idea is completely bad it sucks because the patent office grants overly broad patents and because we have a judicial branch running amuck making decisions on technology they barely understand. Dumping the patent system while nice in fantasy land isn't going to necessarily mean that it will make things better. China, and other countries, are copying products with little to no R&D like mad and undercutting the real companies making these products. The result is that some of the companies are losing their ass due to R&D costs - what you propose, nuking the patent system, would allow this with no penalty. You sure that's what you want?
Oh and yes people invented things before patents. Then they VERY closely held onto that information for fear that others would benefit from it if it was shared with anyone other than maybe an apprentice. They didn't simply tell every Tom, Dick, and Harry, who wandered by how to do the thing that allowed them to make a living I promise you. There also wasn't this huge global information system that would allow the information to spread like wildfire.
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