Vonage Settles With Verizon For Up To $117.5 Million
Well Vonage, you lost. Huge. The New York Times is reporting that Vonage has settled with Verizon for one of two amounts, depending on whether the courts will rehear the case.
If they do, Vonage will pay $80 million to Verizon. If they don't, Vonage will pay $117.5 million. They've also agreed to pay $2.5 million to charity.
While it sounds like awful news for the VOIP provider, the settlement includes the right to use Verizon's patents and the stock market is optimistic. Vonage's shares soared 70% in after-hours trading... to $2.60.
Might as well just pay the $117.5 million. Verizon's robot super-lawyers can not be defeated, Vonage. Forget about it.
Shares Rise as Vonage Settles Fight Over Patent [NYT]
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Comments:
Indeed they are being sued by AT&T. With all of this money Vonage is having to pay out to folks who think they invented common sense, I'm fearful of my Vonage service going the way of Sun Rocket. That, or my bill becoming as expensive as it used to be with Bellsouth/AT&T.
In unrelated news, Vonage has announced new pricing for its services. Packages will now range from $79 and up. In announcing the new pricing points, Vonage's CEO remarked that, "It's not about raising revenue, it's about giving the consumer additional choices. The 'right-pricing' will go into effect immediately."
I don't think they lost. I think they are being unfairly kicked around by businesses that can't stand the fact that someone actually innovated something new, and want to use the courts to shove the little guys out of business.
It still disgusts me that Verizon was even able to patent something as vague as "A method by which packetized voice is transmitted over a network". The US patent office needs to be burned down.
If there were MORE governmental control over the tele-coms this wouldn't happen- deregulation of tele-coms, utilities and the airline industry haven't given us any benefits after 20 years.
@Trevor:
DING DING DING DING Trevor wins!
When there isn't a free market to begin with, deregulation just entrenches oligopolists further.
Actually the real culprit here isn't deregulation - it's the horribly broken and abused US Patent system coupled with a blitzkrieg of litigation. Since when is "mapping a phone number to an IP address" a novel idea?
I especially love the picture from Chinatown on this article. Vonage should have fought! Verizon may be powerful now, but all it takes is a few swift hits to make a lumbering giant begin to buckle...Wal*Mart is a good example....