It is over now. Vonage has finally ended its bitter legal battle with Verizon Communications and agreed to pay the specified amount to be decided by the US Appeals court. If the court drops the injunction on two VoIP patents, then Vonage will pay Verizon $80 million, otherwise it must pay $117 million.
In any case, the high voltage drama, which at once threatened the existence of Vonage, is heading towards settlement. It is good for Vonage in particular and VoIP in general. After all, Vonage is one of front-runner residential VoIP providers in USA with more than 200 million customers. The patent dispute has somewhat affected these customers.
Vonage settled two legal disputes with Klausner Technologies and Sprint Nextel in recent months. The residential VoIP provider has reached out an agreement to use Klausner’s patents relating to voicemail services. It has also agreed to pay some $80 million to Sprint Nextel as part of the settlement. In return, Sprint Nextel has granted more than 100 VoIP patents to Vonage.
Comments
Didn’t this Verizon battle end a while back? What’s even more interesting is the recent win by Cox against Verizon’s suit for the same patent infringement claim. Looks like Vonage lost a ton of money for nothing - I bet they wish they had Cox’s attorneys!
Bryan Hertz
$117 million isn’t that much for the VoIP giant however I have a strange feeling that Vonage will face more patent infringement claims in the nearest future.
Sheesh what a waste of money. Thats only gonna wind up costing us all more in monthly fees ultimately.