Vonage caught a break and can continue to sign up new customers after being found guilty of infringing patents belonging to Verizon. According to Marketwatch: “A federal court of appeals issued a stay that allows Holmdel, N.J.-based Vonage to continue to do business as usual until an appeal is heard. Vonage is seeking to make the stay permanent.” So, to amuse ourselves whilst we await the outcome of the appeal, here’s some intelligent analysis of the infringing patents.

We’re not lawyers, but this stuff looks pretty broadly defined. Vonage is currently guilty of infringing:

26. A method comprising:

receiving a name translation request at a server coupled to a public packet data network;

translating a name included in the request into a destination telephone number associated with a name included in the request; and

transmitting a reply containing both the destination telephone number and a packet data network address of a telephone gateway coupled between the public packet data network and a telephone network through the public packet data network to a calling device.

27. A method as in claim 26, wherein the address is an Internet Protocol address.

By the way, we patented a method for posting cat pictures to the internet while you were reading that. Discuss.—MEGHANN MARCO

Verizon-Vonage patent analysis Part One: 6,282,574 [ZDNet]