And what is the exposure for other independent providers of VoIP services? Not to mention software and hardware providers, though the dominant carriers are unlikely to sue their suppliers.
AT&T filed a lawsuit against VoIP provider Vonage Oct. 19 seeking damages for alleged patent infringement.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of a Vonage settlement with Sprint Nextel over patent infringement as well, and against an as-yet-unresolved patent infraction case filed by Verizon. Vonage also appears to have settled another legal dispute with Klausner Technologies, a small company with patents on voice mail technology, for an undisclosed sum.
In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, at&t says Vonage willfully infringed an at&t patent related to telephone systems that allow people to make VoIP calls using standard telephone devices.
So far, Vonage's patent-related payments are north of $80 million, as Vonage announced on Oct. 8 that it settled its suit with Sprint Nextel for $80 million. As part of that agreement, Vonage agreed to license VoIP patents from Sprint, including more than 100 patents covering technology for connecting calls from a traditional phone network to an IP network. And then there is the Klausner settlement.
Vonage is also in the process of resolving a patent infringement dispute with Verizon. Unfortunately, of course, the Sprint Nextel settlement and the ultimate Verizon settlement will set a precedent likely requiring Vonage to settle with at&t as well. That will likely bump Vonage's patent payments well above $100 million in total.
And if Vonage is infringing patents held by all three giants, what are the odds other VoIP providers are immune? As for the giants, they'll simply cross-license. For everybody else, the warning is pretty clear: get too much success and you will be sued. So one wonders when the assault against cable companies will come. After all, if one wishes to slow down competitors, messing around with Vonage is okay if it creates the foundation for the bigger assault against cable. But Vonage isn't a telco incumbent's big problem in any case.
It is a sobering thought: all the other independent VoIP providers other than cable are much smaller than Vonage. What chance do they have if any conceivable profit goes to pay lawyers and settlement fees?
No comments:
Post a Comment