Vonage to Pay Sprint $69.5 Million
An AP newswire article, via PhysOrg.com, reports that:
Internet telephone company Vonage Holdings Corp. was ordered in federal court Tuesday to pay Sprint Nextel $69.5 million in damages for infringing on six telecommunications patents owned by competitor Sprint Nextel Corp.More here.
Vonage shares plunged 66 cents, or more than 33 percent, to close at $1.30. Trading was temporarily halted after news of the verdict broke.
It was the second verdict against the Holmden, N.J.-based company this year. A jury in Virginia determined in March that Vonage had violated three Verizon patents in building its Internet phone system. The jury awarded Verizon $58 million in damages plus 5.5 percent royalties on future revenues.
Sprint sued Vonage in 2005, claiming the upstart company had infringed on seven Sprint patents for connecting Internet phone calls.
posted by Fergie @ 9/25/2007 01:30:00 PM
1 Comments:
Pity that this debacle is giving the entire VoIP segment a black eye because there are great companies out there that focused on the technology and not the “sizzle”. Hey, I liked the Vonage commercials as much as the next guy, I only wish they had spent more time and money making sure they had the rights to use the technology they did. I still like the idea of VoIP and finding alternatives is hard because I don’t want to be stranded like many Sunrocket customers were recently. It seems there are good alternatives like Net2Phone and Lingo, but it is really too bad that such a high profile provider will probably set this whole category back in people’s minds.
Post a Comment
<< Home