British Telecom Claims Patents on VOIP Session Initiation Protocol

An anonymous reader writes with bad news for operators of SIP gateways. From the article: "VoIP-to-PSTN termination providers and SIP vendors will be watching their inboxes for a lawyer's letter from BT, which has kicked off a licensing program levying a fee on the industry, based on a list of 99 patents .. The British incumbent is offering to allow third parties to use the Session Initiation Protocol under a license agreement... BT is requesting either $US50,000 or a combination of 0.3 percent of future revenue from affected products, plus 0.3 percent of the last six months' sales for products as 'past damages.' It's kindly offering a discount for customers that pay up within six weeks of receiving a BT letter of demand, and there's a premium to $US60,000 and 0.36 percent of revenue for those who hold out."

Comments

Everyone should switch to IAX2 then...

[Anonymous Coward]

All ITSPs then should ditch SIP for PSTN trunking and move to support IAX2. A much simpler protocol and it goes through NAT like a knife through butter.

Re:No more Gotcha! patent suits

[denis-The-menace]

This is what is also known as a "submarine patent"

It lurks under the water while adoption builds.
Later on, the "submarine patent" surfaces and sues everyone.