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Vonage May Have Way Around Patent Disputes
nevillethedevil writes "Bloomberg is reporting that Vonage may have found a way around the current patent issues they have been facing with Verizon and others. They are applying technological solutions to a legal problem, changing the way that Vonage's communications software operates at a basic level to ensure that they no longer infringe on patent claims. 'Vonage's new technology can be installed through software downloads and shouldn't be costly to deploy, Citron said. The company will continue to appeal the court decision that requires it to pay Verizon damages for infringing patents on technology that translates Internet-based calls to standard lines.'"
The could just tape a speaker to a phone, unless at&t has a patent on that too.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
"Vonage shares have plunged 80 percent since the company went public a year ago."
Does anyone know why? Is that at all related to the case for patent disputes, or is it just because they're not selling that well?
If it's because of the patent disputes, that would be a shame. An innovative company losing money due to the U.S.' screwed up patent legislation...
Grammar Nazi
With their vast experience of finding copywrite-infringing code - they found the offending 3 lines of codes in a few hours. // Copywrite 1997 Bell Atlantic //
if (switch = "5eSS") {
phone_home("Bell Atlantic Law Dept", hostname);
}
Golly, this sure is exciting!
What ad?
My guess is you're running Flash9 on Linux like me. The implementation is more than a little buggy.
AccountKiller
Because slashdot has sold out!!
Actually slashdot uses some dynamic ads that simply trust the ad provider won't do shit like that. The admins here will fix it soon I bet.
Of course there's a way around it! It's software after all.
s .html
e rvice.html
I worked in a company that did software in the banking/finance world and the lawyer literally spent all her time working with engineering to figure ways around patents or otherwise write code that stuck to as many standards as legally possible.
Apparently this presented great complexity from a coding perspective.
Two informative links for those that want a bit of substantive background on the topic.
http://ipurbia.com/2007/03/verizon-patent-analysi
http://herot.typepad.com/cherot/2007/04/verizon_s
That this kind of litigation has to happen at all is another indicator of how bad the business climate is in the U.S.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
I've had it happen at odd occasions over the last year. I don't think they're fixing it, unless you've redefined fixing to mean "counting their stacks of ad cash."
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
It's too bad the new approach violates patents from Nokia, Microsoft, and Apple...
Click on the title and bring it up in a new window. It's pretty lame.
This just means that 1) Vonage's new implementation could unknowingly fall under somebody else's patent, and they'd have to play the whole game over again, and 2) Vonage will patent their new implementation (to try to avoid this mess again, since that will at least make it so that only pre-May-2007 patents can sink Vonage), but that will just cause more headaches for the next organization who thinks that implementing VoIP/POTS integration can be done in an obvious / non-patentable way.
I don't see that ad. However, awhile back I saw some sort of moving ad zipping across the screen. Reminded me of those "punch the monkey" ads. I closed the browser and went off to another site. I suppose I should have noticed WTF the ad was, so I know NEVER to buy anything from that company!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
So they found a way around the patent, possibly expanding the knowledge in the field by discovering a new solution. Good for them! How do people read this in a manner that would be critical of the patent system?
How come you read about companies violating patents one day and then finding "work arounds" the next? Seriously, if a patented technology is a crucial component in an application, how is it that the expected reaction is to bypasses it and yet keep the application functioning *exactly* like it was before.
If that doesn't show that software patents are bogus, I don't know what will.
They have screwed up everything, not just with Verizon but with the IPO, investor perception and customers. If you are a pension fund manager and you want to make a play to earn money on the shift to VoIP, you will not buy Vonage and so for this reason, Vonage is dead, dead, dead.
I hope Verizon has their way with Vonage. Vonage is a horrible company that deserves to be shut down. Anyone ever been thru the account cancellation maze with them? Jesus...its like trying to bathe a stray tom cat.
If Verizon tries to sue Level3 it will be presented with code which does what is described in some of their patents and is dated at least several years prior to that.
I wish Verizon would sue Level3, but they won't. They'll sue every ISP/VOIP provider that doesn't pay the Verizon Patent Tax. That costs them a couple of lawyers salaries for a huge return.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Go Vonage. I doubt anyone believes for a moment that Verizon is doing anything with these patents to make VoIP calls, cheaper, better, or easier to use. Most likely just the opposite -- which is completely anti-consumer!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Adblock and Noscript are your Firefox friends!
Thanks to them, I barely remember what you are complaining about....give them a try!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
"....bathe a stray tom cat."
Try a window screen. As long as the screen itself is not resting on a solid surface (ie: up on small blocks) this works most of the time. The theory is that the cat will cling to the screen and allow you to bathe, examine, draw blood, admin meds, etc. Works amazingly well!
why yes IAAVT (I Am A Veterinary Technician)!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Try a hosts file. I don't see those types of ads anymore.
If Verizon tries to sue Level3 it will be presented with code which does what is described in some of their patents and is dated at least several years prior to that.
So what? If it's not been disclosed, it doesn't matter.
Anyone ever been thru the account cancellation maze with them?
Actually, just yesterday. It took 2 phones calls over 2 evenings to convince them that if I tranferred my number 3 weeks ago I really did have no service anymore for them to bill me for. I didn't have any problems with Vonage before that, but after the experience of convincing them to stop billing me for service I didn't have anymore, I'd never use them again.
BrentIronically I just canceled a Vonage service a few minutes ago. It took over twenty minutes of threats and demanding the service be canceled.At one point I said you have 60 seconds to agree to cancel me or I file in small claims court. I started a count down, 50, 40, 30, 20. At 20 seconds I told them simply I'm taking you to court and I'm deadly serious. That's when the tactic shifted and they said I'd have to pay a $39.95 disconnect fee. That's when I got angry. Things got very heated. They insisted it was just three paragraphs down in the user agreement. After the call I dug into it and it was 3/4 of the way down buried in page after page of legalese. I double checked all my e-mails from them and the fee was never mentioned and the reps don't inform you. With tax it wound up being nearly $45 to cancel the service. They fought with me and kept giving me the hard sell inspite of repeated threats of a lawsuit. They are very scary and remind me of the old AOL cancellation hassles I heard so much about. The service was the worst phone service I ever had. Bad quality, constant dropped calls and the box kept loosing authorization. If you want a VOIP phone service check out Packet 8. I had them a few years ago and I had zero problems and the quality was good. Also they're cheaper. I needed a VOIP line six months ago in a matter of hours so I went with Vonage. Biggest phone mistake of my life. I do plan to start a website informing the public. I'm sure there are a few around. Burying fees in user agreements is pretty sleazy. I get three or four a day averaging five to ten pages. They know most people don't have the time to read them. If it wasn't a scam there would be a notice in the e-mails or their reps would tell you. Burying near the end of a user agreement is intentional. Especially when they fight you about canceling the service.
psst.. adblock plus for firefox...
Then maybe Verizon should not subsidize their DSL service? Verizon DSL should provide access to the Internet. Period. Nothing more, nothing less.
If Verizon DSL is a money loser, WTF are they doing supplying it?? It doesn't make sense. Companies are there to make money. They make money with DSL subscriptions. Yes, including Verizon. Verizon just wants the cake and eat it too!
Anyway, the future is digital phone service with analog maybe as a backup for things like 911. Digital is more efficient and better quality (ie. voice quality more consistent and better but jitter is a problem in current implementation - the latter can be fixed in digital, the former cannot be fixed cheaply in analog!).
Vonage is NOT a leech. Verizon just want to pull a fast one on their customers. They would prefer that *every* single service you get over their copper is from them. So if Verizon expands to book selling, would that mean that one cannot get a book from B&N or Amazon? According to you, B&N and Amazon are leeching Verizon's hypothetical book selling business...
The future doesn't wait for you or Verizon. It just happens. Catch up or be left behind.
About the coolest simplest thing I have learned in a long time!
What a load of twaddle. If you want to be a sucker paying the telco's rates, go ahead.
Anyway, your premise about the maintenance of the copper is utter BS. Vonage requires that one has an internet connection. That is where the telco or cable company or whoever is paid.
I pay my ISP (again, not the telco) for DSL service. They pay a wholesale rate for leasing the DSLAM port, etc, to the telco. The telco is still making money, but without having to provide support and infrastructure. So it's better than if I were a direct customer! The telcos around here offer "dry DSL"... that's DSL without providing a dialtone too. If I didn't have Vonage, I could just stick with a mobile phone... is wireless phone service also a leech? It would be according to your [illogical] argument.
I am both a Vonage and Verizon customer, and there is no traditional concept of copper at all involved that needs to be maintained. I have business class internet over fiber optic cable to the house. Verizon is the data provider and Vongage is the phone provider.
Anyone that gets a traditional phone in this city will have fiber optic cable routed to the house, there is no copper anymore, and the phone line terminates into a box in one's garage where the fiber from the alley terminates.
Regardless of which company I pick, the signal from the phone to digital data is either converted in a little blue linksys box in the house or in a little cream colored box in the garage. Either way, it's digital before it leaves the house.
In terms of features, price, and flexibility, Vongage wins hands down over Verizon.
If Vongage is a "leech", then so is Slashdot and Google and just about every other usefull site on the internet as they call come down the same tube of light in a digital format.
As far as I see it, the internet infrastructure should be considered like railroads and highways. No one company should dictate what travels through them, as they are too fundamental to our society.
Does anyone really consider pizza delivery companies to be leeches of the road system?
Agreed. If the DSL service doesn't make money without the Phone service, then business model that is messed up is with the carrier.
If a DSL, Cable Modem, or FIOS service does not pay for itself purely based on the data service, then the provider is not charging enough for the data portion. If you take the cost of a DSL line and say it is X then there should be a cost Y and Z which amount to the data and the voice portion. If you want to expand it one step further you could add in the cost of the copper as a W. At any case X' (the marked up version of X) should work as the price for the customer for the whole thing and likewise, the marked up version Y' + W' should work for the customer price of the data only portion. If you don't have a way to determine those costs then something is wrong with your business model.
I understand that there are "market pricing" situations that make things a bit more complicated than that, but in the world of the physical transport to the house, there is usually only two delivery services so there's not a fierce competition in that area.
That's a Sure Thing! Y'know, with Web 2.0 and all that . . .
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"