Vonage Hit With $69.5M Judgement

andy1307 writes "The Washington Post is reporting that Net telephone company Vonage Holdings Corp. was ordered in federal court Tuesday to pay Sprint Nextel $69.5 million in damages for infringing on six telecommunications patents owned by competitor Sprint Nextel Corp. In addition to the damages, jurors awarded Sprint Nextel a 5 percent royalty from Vonage on future revenues. It was the second verdict against Vonage this year. A jury in Virginia determined in March that Vonage had violated three Verizon patents in building its Internet phone system. The jury awarded Verizon $58 million in damages plus 5.5 percent royalties on future revenues. Greg Gorbatenko, a telecommunications and media analyst for Jackson Securities, said the decision 'feels like a death knell' for Vonage because future revenue will likely dry up, preventing the company from investing in better technology or improving customer service."

Comments

Re:Which patents

[greenbird]

Does anyone know what techniques and technologies Vonage used that Sprint and/or Verizon own patents on?

A ZDNet analysis of the disputed Verizon patents 6,104,711, 6,282,574 and 6,359,880.

I haven't been able to find a list of the Sprint patents yet.

Re:Which patents

[greenbird]

From the parent post pdf:

Sprint filed this lawsuit in October of 2005, asserting infringement of sixty-one claims from seven representative patents from its patent portfolio. The patents in suit can be divided into essentially two groups: the '301 Family Patents and the '605 Family Patents. The '301 Family Patents include U.S. Patent Nos. 6,473,429 (the '429 Patent), U.S. Patent No. 6,665,294 (the '294 Patent), and U.S. Patent No. 6,298,064 (the '064 Patent). These three patents are collectively referred to as the '301 Family Patents because they all share an identical written description and drawings with U.S. Patent No. 5,991,301 and were filed as continuation applications of the '301 Patent. For priority purposes they all claim the filing date of the '301 Patent, which is September 8, 1995. Each of these patents is entitled "Broadband Telecommunications System," and generally discloses an invention which is "a system for providing virtual connections through an ATM interworking multiplexer on a call- by-call basis." '429 Patent, Abstract.

The '605 Family Patents include U.S. Patent No. 6,452,932 (the '932 Patent), U.S. Patent No. 6,304,572 (the '572 Patent), U.S. Patent No. 6,463,052 (the '052 Patent), and U.S. Patent No. 6,633,561 (the '561 Patent). These four patents are collectively referred to as the '605 Family Patents because they all share an identical written description and drawings with U.S. Patent Application No. 08/238,605 (the '605 Application, now abandoned) and were filed as continuation applications to the '605 Application. For priority purposes they all claim the filing date of the '605 Application, which is May 5, 1994. Each of these patents is entitled "Method, System and Apparatus for Telecommunications Control," and generally discloses an invention that "includes a method, system, and apparatus for providing communication control." '932 Patent, Abstract.