Vonage Loses Appeal; Verizon Owed $120 Million

Billosaur writes "Things do not look good for Vonage. Yesterday, they lost their request for reconsideration of their settlement with Verizon. This means Vonage owes Verizon $120 million to end the patent lawsuit filed against them. The costs associated with defending the case have cut into Vonage's bottom line, and despite attempts to cut costs by laying off 10% of their workforce, they may be unable to make a payment against their debt come December. According to the settlement, Vonage will pay $117.5 million to Verizon and another $2.5 million dollars to charity. Vonage's shares have dropped 87% since their IPO, now hovering around $1.50 per share."

Comments

This is really getting sad.

[Lordplatypus]

I appreciate what patent law is meant to do, protect and encourage inventors and developers to invent and develop. It seems though, that as of late, it only succeeds in limiting and discouraging people from trying to develop something useful. I seems to me that with the nature of today's technology, that if a company develops a patent and does not try to produce or license the technology, they should loose the ability to sue over its use. -lp