[Asterisk-biz] Sprint Nextel sueing over VoIP patents

[Sergey Kuznetsov]

I found at USPTO patent which is probably is a root of this lawsuit:

* 6,868,081 - they were awarded by ** March 15, 2005

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,868,081.WKU.&OS=PN/6,868,081&RS=PN/6,868,081

*
Inventors: 	*Akram; Abdul Ghafoor* (Grandview, MO); *Chum; Stanley* 
(Fremont, CA); *DeNap; Frank Anthony* (Millbrae, CA)
Assignee: 	*Sprint Communications Company L.P.* (Overland Park, KS)
Appl. No.: 	* 290855*
Filed: 	*April 13, 1999*


*Abstract*

According to the invention, a method and apparatus are disclosed for 
providing multiline telephonic and data services */over/* a single 
access facility. In one embodiment of the present invention, a wall unit 
is located at a customer premises which terminates a single analog phone 
line and adaptively encodes using */Voice over Internet Protocol/* 
technology and multiplexes a plurality of telephonic and data calls 
*/over/* the single analog phone line. A corresponding gateway server 
(or a plurality of gateway servers), which supports one or a plurality 
of wall unit calls, is located in the public switched telephone network 
("PSTN"), or possibly in a private telephone network. The gateway server 
communicates with one or more active wall units to extract one or more 
telephonic and data calls from the analog signal produced from a wall 
unit, and to appropriately route the telephonic calls */over/* the PSTN 
and the data packets */over/* the */Internet/* or to other data 
services. The telephonic and data devices connected to the wall unit are 
each assigned individual virtual phone numbers by the provider of the 
service embodying this invention. To reach one of these devices, its 
respective virtual telephone number is used. The virtual phone numbers 
are published across the PSTN and therefore can be reached from anywhere 
on the PSTN. In another embodiment, virtual phone numbers are not 
required, as phone calls destined for subscribed telephone number are 
automatically routed through the gateway server.




trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com wrote:
> Sprint Nextel is sueing vonage, voiceglo and theglobe.com for infringing
> on VoIP patents.  Sprint Nextel claims to have about 100 patents on VoIP
> technologies.  Does anyone know which ones this article is talking
> about, and if so does asterisk have any of those features?  
>
> The reason I am asking is that the article is vague, Vonage uses a
> fairly standard codec set, I dont know about the others.  So if its not
> codecs I wonder if its something so generic that the patent would be
> tossed out upon challenge.  
>
> Anyone thinking about doing a VoIP business may want to get more info
> before proceeding since they may not have the millinos vonage has to
> fight this.
>
> http://kansascity.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2005/10/03/daily23.html
>   
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