Vonage legal woes continue

Legal troubles for voice over IP provider Vonage are far from over, but the company keeps chugging along.

Vonage, which recently lost a court battle against Verizon Communications, is also facing a patent lawsuit from Sprint Nextel. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas, in October 2005 will likely go to trial in September, a Sprint representative said Wednesday.

Sprint Nextel claims Vonage is infringing on seven of its patents that deal with the processing and delivery of voice and data packets. The company is seeking an injunction against Vonage, plus monetary damages.

In its original suit, Sprint also named two other companies, Voiceglo Holdings and TheGlobe.com, for infringing on the same seven patents. Sprint later worked out a licensing agreement and settled the case with those two companies.

A week ago, Vonage was ordered by a court in Virginia to pay $58 million in damages to Verizon for infringing on three of its patents. The companies will meet in court again later this month to argue whether a judge should grant an injunction against Vonage.

Meanwhile, Vonage is trying to go about business as usual. Earlier this week, it announced penny-a-minute rates for new and existing U.S. Vonage customers who call Argentina, Australia, China, Mexico, Singapore, Israel, Poland and Sweden.

Then on Wednesday, Vonage announced a new wireless router developed with Motorola that lets people send a fax, make a phone call and surf the Web at the same time on the same broadband connection. I'm sure people back in 1995 would be cheering this technological breakthrough, but who really faxes anymore? I'm not sure I can even remember how to use one.