Follow-up to the Verizon vs. Vonage Title Fight
Here’s the low-down on the blog post of yesterday outlining the Verizon-Vonage Battle. Although the jury has sided with Verizon, it has only found Vonage guilty of some patent infringement. See below for further details.
Verizon Wins Patent Case Against Vonage; Now Pushing To Shut Down Vonage Service
from the hurray-for-innovation dept
Following yesterday’s request by Verizon that Vonage pay nearly $200 million for actually innovating while Verizon sat on the sidelines, a jury has sided with Verizon, and told Vonage to pay up. They didn’t go all the way, however, finding Vonage only violated some patents, and saying the fine should be $58 million and 5.5% of future service revenue. Verizon, however, has also asked the judge to issue an injunction to shut down Vonage’s service. Given the recent MercExchange/eBay Supreme Court decision hopefully the judge will realize that an injunction isn’t reasonable here. Vonage, of course, will appeal, so this is anything but over. What will likely happen, though, is that Vonage will just settle the case, because at some point it’s just cheaper to settle than to fight. Apparently, that’s what you get for innovating as a small company these days.
