[asterisk-biz] Verizon v Vonage

[Sergey Kuznetsov]

Bret,

I agree with you on every point.

I would say that is the Evolution's major stopper, because small 
companies just afraid to develop anything,
knowing that someone big can have some broad patent.


All the Best!
Sergey.

Trixter aka Bret McDanel wrote:
>
>
> On 2/21/07, *Sergey Kuznetsov* <asterisk_biz at deeptown.org 
> <mailto:asterisk_biz at deeptown.org>> wrote:
>
>     That's easy!
>
>     Dan Ravicher of Public Patent Foundation (pubpat.org
>     <http://pubpat.org>) does that.
>
>
>
> In reality that only solves the minor half of the problem. The biggest 
> thing america needs in this particular arena is tort reform.  If the 
> loser has to pay the winners court costs, then you would 
> *dramatically* see the number of frivolous cases (including bogus 
> patent suits) drop.  There will always be crackpots with more money 
> than sense filing stupid cases, but this would make people think twice 
> before filing.
>
> The way it stands now people can file stupid suits against you, you 
> can win every one (and unless you won on summary dismissal its hard to 
> counter sue for court costs, although not impossible) and you sitll 
> file bankrupcy.  See the cult awareness network vs 20 'random' church 
> of scientology members where those people paid $200 to sue, lost every 
> case, but CAN spent about $1M defending itself.  The church of 
> scientology bought CAN out of bankrupcy right after the suits were 
> over.  Amazing how CoS is no longer listed as a cult by them.
>
> Patent reform does need ot happen, but tort reform is much more 
> important.  Who has a big hand in drafting laws?  Lawyers.  Who 
> profits the most from stupid insane lawsuits?  ...  Coincidence that 
> lawyers are very opposed to tort reform saying it will prevent people 
> from ever filing with cause?
>
> Tort reform would solve most of the patent problems, if a company 
> refuses to sue because their patent is bogus (j2's patent on fax2email 
> is based on someone elses patent which is based on j2s press release, 
> RTI in NY has a patent on LCR which is bogus due to 10 years of prior 
> art, sprint claims over 100 patents (and sued vonage as well), verizon 
> claims 85 or so patents, the list goes on).
>
> It costs $1-2M minimum to fight a patent case on average, RTI charges 
> $20k licensing fees, and has gotten vonage (after an initial pre-ipo 
> fight then when the sprint case came up vonage settled), cisco, 
> lucent, and many others to settle because its cheaper, google called 
> shenanigans on it and grabbed their brooms, RTI filed for $6B, case is 
> pending.  J2 charges $1 or so per customer for fax2email.  Unless you 
> have millions of customers its just not worth it.
>
> Sprint and verizon appear to only go after bigger companies that 
> actually have money.  They dont have to stop there, they can try to 
> squelch anyone that poses enough of a threat before they get big 
> enough to actually defend themselves...
>
> If tort reform happens, then companies run the risk of losing their 
> patent AND paying for the defense on the people they tried to extort.  
> That will certainly stop a lot of people, especially since you might 
> get a better defense if you have a real case against the bogus patent.
>
> It has been the policy of the USPTO to issue the patent, without 
> regard for its validity and let the courts decide the matter later on, 
> this has gone on for at least 15 years, maybe more.  This certainly 
> needs to change, I dont want to sound like I am minimizing patent 
> reform, I just see it as the lesser issue in the whole process.
>
> -- 
> Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
> Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
> http://www.trxtel.com the VoIP provider that pays you!
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