[Asterisk-bsd] patents

[Jeff LaCoursiere]

Hi all,

Not *specifically* a question about asterisk on bsd, but certainly
relevant to any of us using asterisk for business, or so it seems?

The recent case against Vonage was just won by Sprint, and it seems a jury
decided Vonage has infringed on a number of patents.  This is the second
such case against Vonage, who lost the first one as well.  I followed the
first case and looked up some of the mentioned patents - all very broad
reaching protocol specs that on quick perusal could apply to just about
any voice over Internet implementation.  Scary!

Does anyone know the details of the patents that have been deemed
infringed upon in this most recent case?  Do any of the codecs / protocols
/ interfaces that each of use every day with Asterisk put us at risk?
I've invested a lot of cash into my prepaid calling card service, and I
would hate to see it all go up in smoke because Sprint wants a royalty
that will sink me.

As a side note I think it sucks that Sprint has done this.  Its the stuff
on TOP of the technology that has made Vonage successful (can we say they
were successful?!?!) - the marketing, the service, the backend business
stuff.  Any one of the big telcos could have done the same thing and
didn't.  Isn't this what our capitalistic society is all about?
Competition and such?  I do understand why the patent infrastructure is in
place - it just seems to be often abused.

Anyway would love for someone to tell me there is nothing to worry
about...

Thanks!

j