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Vonage Hit With $69.5M Judgement

Posted by kdawson on from the hard-to-get-customers-after-that dept.

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."

4 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. Damn... by Cervantes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Damn, I wish I'd remembered to patent "connecting phone calls over the internet" when I thought about it... oh, the first time I saw a microphone attached to a PC.
    Seriously, 8 random people who aren't smart enough to get out of jury duty are considered smart enough to understand the fine points of patent law and internet telephony? And this is enough to cripple a (relatively) small startup company? Can someone remind me what Sprint/Nextel did with these oh-so-valuable patents, and what Vonage did that cost them tens of millions of dollars? Besides not paying sprint tens of millions of dollars, that is.

    --
    If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
    1. Re:Damn... by Adambomb · · Score: 5, Insightful

      who aren't smart enough to get out of jury duty Now if only we were all smart enough to realize that this might be a source of our problems.
      --
      Ice Cream has no bones.
  2. Re:Absurd by Adambomb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To the fellow who points out that people who are too dumb to get out of jury duty are put in charge of million dollar technical decisions which they cannot possibly understand.... yes. You are 100% correct and you make an excellent post. Seriously though, why would ANYONE consider it smart to get out of jury duty when the decisions of the juries impacts case law like no other. Why is "Getting out of jury duty" considered smart? Yes, it is a hassle and there are opportunity costs involved, but think of the cost of ALL JURIES BEING RETARDED.

    In fact, i think we may be seeing that cost all over the friggan place at the moment.

    --
    Ice Cream has no bones.
  3. How times change... by ehinojosa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's really kind of ironic. Verizon bought out MCI, which was one of the first long distance companies that was able to circumvent the AT&T regulated monopoly. Their microwave towers were disrupting the existing market forces in much the same way that Vonage and VoIP in general has the potential to be. Now a company that only managed to get its start by being basically "a law firm with an antenna on the roof" is essentially using their army of lawyers to keep down their potential competitors.

    Funny how that works.