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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."
As much as I like VOIP Vonage is pretty sleazy to deal with. I kept having service interruptions so I finally cancelled my service. It took 20 minutes of threats of lawsuits before they would even agree to cancel the service. Over all it took 45 minutes of fighting and they were still trying to talk me out of it right up until I hung up on them. There are other and better services so it couldn't happen to a sleazier company as far as I'm concerned.