Vonage wants review of Verizon patent appeal

Vonage has asked a federal appeals court to revisit its recent decision to uphold most of a patent infringement ruling in a case it lost to Verizon Communications.

The Internet phone company characterized the request for a rehearing as the "next logical step" in the litigation process and in "moving our business forward."

The struggling firm also continues to "explore all legal options available to put the Verizon litigation to rest," Chief Legal Officer Sharon O'Leary said in a statement Wednesday.

Could that mean another out-of-court settlement is on the horizon? Earlier this week, Vonage settled a patent dispute with Sprint Nextel to the tune of $80 million. That development arrived just weeks after a federal jury ordered Vonage to pay $69.5 million for infringing six voice-over Internet protocol patents.

In late September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a jury's finding earlier this year that Vonage had infringed on two Verizon patents, which are seemingly critical to the way the Net phone company's service works. (Vonage has maintained it has a workaround that doesn't infringe, but some analysts say Verizon may challenge those supposed fixes as well.)

The appeals court opted to send the infringement decision on the remaining patent at issue, which is considered less significant to Vonage's offerings, back to a lower court for a new trial. The court also threw out a $58 million judgment against Vonage because the jury didn't specify how the damages would be divvied up among the three patents at issue.

Update at 2:33 p.m. PDT: Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus and constitutional law professor at Johns Hopkins University, said requests for appeals court rehearings are "routinely sought" but "seldom granted."

[jerryper]

Vonnage problems

Vonnage is mired in legal and financial difficulties. There is only one voip company that is cash flow positive and owns 68 of its own patents.It is called 8x8 or Eight by Eight.It has its act together as it serves both individuals as well as business clients with its proprietary technolgy. It is a public company with the symbol EGHT. When Sun Rocket closed its doors and stranded its customers, Eight by Eight was asked to take over the Sun Rocket customers that were abandoned. Recently it took over another company's customers that exited the voip business. What would happen to its subscribers if Vonnage closed down ?

[Bud5000]

Sitting is illegal?

Thanks for the astro-turfing there, Jerry. Listen, isn't having a patent just to sit on it --isn't that illegal? I mean, in the highly regulated communications industry, if a company is doing a disservice by taking down a VOIP company so that we /have/ to buy their LAME land-line service --isn't that something we should fix? Verizon is entitled 'by the rules of the game' to increase their profits, and since they can't bank good-will like Google (sort of) and Apple (kind of), they can certainly exploit us. Still this situation need to be corrected --this is how we got Windows software that sucks --because no one else was allowed to play for a long time.