[asterisk-users] Verizon-Vonage Lawsuit

[J. Oquendo]

On Sat, 07 Apr 2007, Jay Milk wrote:

(my comments inline)

> This sounds like you really don't know what these legal proceedings are
> about.  I googled this a little a week or two ago, when it appeared on
> engadget of all places.  It appears that VZ sued Vonage for infringement
> of seven patents, including three for billing methods.  IIRC, the
> billing issues were thrown out in a first round, I assume, because it's
> one of those "how else you're gonna bill customers?" deals.

"The jury found that three of five disputed patents were infringed and
all are valid, while rejecting Verizon's claim that the infringement was
willful. The patents cover a method of translating calls between the
Internet and standard phones, call-waiting features and wireless handsets."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aj9gCo9Pr58g&refer=home

No one is mentioning which of the three are the main cause for the
rulings so you're ASSuming its largely based on on the interconnection
of PSTN's. Take that out of the mix for a moment, and you still have
two violations so your argument makes little sense.

> The one bit that did keep coming up in all my reading was that VZ
> apparently patented some sort of mechanism to interconnect a packet
> network (VOIP) to a circuit switched network (PSTN).  They seemed to
> attempt to gain an injunction barring Vonage from using this technology
> or method, essentially cutting off Vonage's customers from the PSTN, and
> rendering Vonage service useless.

This "one bit" that keeps coming up is obviously under the microscope
from every VoIP company in existence including my employer, our vendors
and anyone with some ties to VoIP no matter how great or how small.
Take this out of the focus for a moment, and you STILL have two other
violations.

> Judging by how surprisingly little information was available on this,
> the conclusion would be that Verizon owns some patent for the VOIP/PSTN
> interface -- that, in turn, would mean that all digital PBX systems
> currently in operation infringe on this patent in some manner.  (Again,
> this is interpolated from the small amount of information I found when
> searching two weeks ago).

Should I reiterate the need to take this one infringement out of the
mix and focus on the other two?

> If Verizon's patent claim is indeed so broad as to prevent Vonage's PSTN
> interconnect, then Verizon would still have to show that the patent is
> non-obvious and a truly new invention (this may be difficult, because
> packet-based and circuit switched networks have been around for longer
> than Verizon has, and there is an obvious way of connecting those two);
> Verizon would also have to show that they had sufficient interest to
> develop the patent (similar to the Cisco/Apple controversy over the
> iPhone trademark).  That latter part is hindered by the fact that
> Verizon didn't start going after Vonage until they had allegedly lost
> over a million customers to Vonage -- it appears a reciprocal action to
> protect VZ's business interests and not their IP.

Non-obvious? You say tomaytoe I say tomahtoe. A patent is a patent is a
patent. Blame the government and legal shmoes for their bastardization
of words, intents and ambiguities when dealing with these matters. No
matter how you want to cut this though, there are 3 infringements and
this is what I look at. 

> That last point could be quite a big one against VZ -- Vonage is gaining
> customers not because they stole Verizon's doubtful IP, but because they
> offer a better deal.  In my area, Vonage is cheaper than a Verizon
> dialtone alone -- and I'd still pay for each outgoing call if I had
> Verizon.

Its obvious VZ went after Vonage due to Vonage slowly taking away VZ's
customer base, but what are you going to do, VZ holds the cards no
matter how much you dislike it, no matter how much you want to play
the butchery game on patents, intents, and what your notion of what
is going on is.

> That said, this is going to be interesting to watch for all us asterisk
> users.  If Vonage loses this one, VZ is going to go after the next VOIP
> provider... and sooner or later, anti-trust regulation will kick in.

As stated previously, I think anyone and everyone in the world of VoIP
is watching. As for your dire apocalyptic prediction of anti-trust
regulation, too many players would bury VZ. Cisco, AT&T, 3Com, I
could name hundreds that own patents that would play the same game
of "Patent Ambiguities" to render any arguments as worthless should
a case go to court on VZ's merits. Strangely and for no other reason
than to understand the context of it all, I will dig up the court
transcripts (since its all public information) to see what patent
numbers were infringed and try to understand it for my own sake.
But to summarize, one's own interpretations of these events are
that and that alone: "One's own interpretation." You say: "But
everyone interconnects to the PSTN with FXS/FXO, foo bar foo."
I say: "Well there are 3 infringments. Take away the interconnect
and it still leaves two. Going back to the PSTN portion of it
all, WHAT IN THAT PORTION is being infringed on".  Neither
you, myself, nor anyone one on this list, news media agency,
etc., can comment on until documentation has been released.
-- 
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J. Oquendo
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"How a man plays the game shows something of his
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