Vonage Admits They Have No Workaround 345
drachenfyre writes "It looks like Vonage has no workaround for their recent patent infringements. This means if a permanent stay isn't granted it is likely that it will be the end of the line for Vonage. What will happen if millions of phone customers suddenly lose their service? Their own filing to the court stated 'While Vonage has studied methods for designing around the patents, removal of the allegedly infringing technology, if even feasible, could take many months to fully study and implement.'"
It's worse than that (Score:5, Interesting)
Now millions of people will have to turn to the existing vampiric phone services
I've been very happy with Vonage, does anyone know a good alternative?
More Info? (Score:3, Interesting)
Patents, prior art, court? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:More Info? (Score:3, Interesting)
Better yet, why don't they just work out a deal to use the patents? Isn't that the idea of patents, to allow the patent holder to profit from the patent? I know making a deal with Verizon is like selling your soul to the Devil's unsavory second cousin, but if it's the difference between the end of your business and staying afloat...
The name "Vonage" may eventually go away . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
. . . but the game will stay the same. That big ole user base is worth too much money to too many people to have it dissolved. I suspect that Verizon will try to forge a settlement which involves some large part of said users.
Huzzah for competition.
Re:stalemate (Score:5, Interesting)
Yellow Submarine (Score:5, Interesting)
If this is a legitimate patent, then Verizon was right to enforce it, and it will only help innovation in the long run, by continuing the legal tradition of protecting new ideas. And the court decisions suggest that it was a legitimate patent.
Wrong. Even assuming Verizon has patented a novel idea (which is highly in question), they DID NOTHING with that patent except sit on it, thus transforming it into a submarine patent, which is only used to extract peanalties from ANOTHER COMPANY that ACTUALLY HAD THE BALLS to pursue the idea.
This is the whole problem with the patent situation. While patents are a good idea on paper, they are not in practice. This is because, basically, if you are granted a patent your best busines case IS TO NOT DEVELOP IT. It is far less risky and more cost-effeftive, to just sit on it for a few years until some unlocky company unknowingly creates a successful business around it - then sue the pants off them.
Patents do not encourage innovation at all - all they do is stifle it. Patent reform is desperatly needed. Companies should not be allowed to sit on a patent. The way things SHOULD procced is this:
Company / person has idea. File patent application.
Patent is reviewed and approved. Patent enters implementation phase, which is some fixed period of time during which the idea is allowed to be brought to market by the company / person. Maybe 1 year?
Implementation phase complete. Patent office then reviews patent AND evidence of implementation. If the company / person HAS NOT brought patent to market, then the patent is REJECTED and any and all ideas are now public domain. If they HAVE, then the patent is granted as par. current patent term length, whatever that is (I think it's 10 years?).
Re:Good Thing (Score:3, Interesting)
If Vonage can show that the Verizon patents are frivolous, customer sentiment like that will be evidence that Vonage can use in their countersuit for tortious interference...
(not a lawyer. yet.)
salvage the hardware? (Score:2, Interesting)
I've got the Linksys RTP300 box. If i understand correctly, the firmware has been 'updated' by Vonage to work only with Vonage service
It would be really cool if Vonage could, as a last act, stuff it with a linux kernel and Asterix.
Since I don't expect that to happen, is it possible to do that myself?
Devil lives in the details (Score:4, Interesting)
Should they really lose their patent after spending billions of dollars?
What kind of research will this encourage?
Re:Yellow Submarine (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with you though, this kind of thing really needs to be done. Just need to find a way to close the loopholes without being overcomplicated or unjust.
Re:stalemate (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, you don't actually know that.
I worked for a company I'll decline to identify when something vaguely parallel like this went on several years back; the companies were smaller, but still large companies. I worked for the Verizon analogue, which I'm going to start calling Bizarro-Verizon, because it's less awful than "the company I worked for" over and over, and because I've been watching SeaLab 2021.
Bizarro-Verizon spent six months notifying Bizarro-Vonage that they needed to open up a licensing agreement; Bizarro-Vonage never seemed to bother. So, Bizarro-Verizon set up an account as if they were a customer at the publically published rates, and just started invoicing Bizarro-Vonage. Some manager inside Bizarro-Vonage spent a month getting the account coordinated and set up, then several months trying to haggle the price down, all the while letting this enormous debt grow and grow, only to announce one day that he couldn't actually find any point at which his company had agreed to pay at all, and since it had been a year, he felt it was pretty obvious they weren't infringing, that negotiations were over, and that we might consider using the invoices as kindling.
So, Bizarro-Verizon spent a new six months indicating first that the account needed to be set up so that the standing debt for the use of their technology could be paid, and as that got ignored, progressively got angrier, until at the end they were threatening to sue. Bizarro-Vonage took the same gamble Real-Vonage took, and lost.
Did we submarine them for a year and a half? No: it's just at medium-sized companies, it takes time for stuff to percolate from one end to the other, and more time to be convinced they're not doing what they're supposed to. At companies the size of AT&T and Vonage, I'm surprised they got here this quickly, to be frank.
Re:Devil lives in the details (Score:3, Interesting)
It's pretty simple to solve this. The implementation phase can last up to ten years, but each year, you must show that you have made reasonable progress from the prior year (as evaluated by experts in the field). A third party developing the concept independently from the ground up in a year would immediately invalidate the patent (brand new patents notwithstanding), as it would indicate that the company was not making a good faith effort to actually develop the technology into a product.
Re:stalemate (Score:2, Interesting)
OK, here's my experience with PacBell/SBC/AT&T (Score:3, Interesting)
(Notice they change their name every couple years despite being a monopoly.)
Moving into my new house, I try to get DSL service (which I already had at my old house). I call a full 6 weeks ahead to make sure. Cable modem was not released in our area yet, so there was only one option. The install date is 7 1/2 weeks later. I decide we can live without internet for a week and a half.
They show up and say it's impossible. I'm too far from the CO. Now, mind you, my next door neighbor has DSL and he is 50 FEET FARTHER from the CO. But they don't care about that.
After 10 more months and a few calls to the California Public Utilities Commission, I finally get my DSL and for the price at which I had it previously. Our phone bill is wrong EVERY MONTH FOR THE NEXT 18 MONTHS with installation fees and early termination fees over and over again. My wife spends 2 hours a month correcting the phone bill.
For my business, I decide to get 714-PROD4ME since I called it and it's out of service. Cool! First, they say I can't get it because it's assigned to a residential area (even though it's not in use). It just so happens that one of my employees lives in that area, so I have him get it as a second line residentially (just to get the number), but they tell him it's "attached" to the neighboring CO AND IT CAN'T BE TRANSFERRED (even though I know lots of people that have), so he gets it as a forwarding number to our business for $18/month. Not too bad.
Then, we try to transfer it to the business, because once you have a number, according to the law they MUST let you keep that number. So they come up with excuses like it can't be transferred from residential to business, but we are on the phone together and he says it's OK. Then they say that since it's a forwarding number, it can't be transferred to a "normal account". Then they say that it will cost $42/month to transfer it to a business number and $42/month minimum for the number it transfers to. Then they say that I can't get Call Busy Rollover on that number (which, of course, I need) BECAUSE THE NUMBER HAS ALREADY BEEN FORWARDED. Nevermind that I have worked at lots of places with P/S/A where they can do this just fine.
I finally switch to Vonage lines, because they are cheaper for more lines and they don't put me through this kind of nonsense. Then P/S/A won't transfer my number to Vonage, saying that only residential and business numbers can be transferred, not "forwarding" numbers. Then they tell me that for only $280 installation and $87/month (for at least one month), I could set up a "virtual office" in the area where the number resides and they could transfer it to that. I said, "You WILL transfer the number to Vonage for free now, or you will do it for free after I call the CPUC and file a complaint." They say that it's technically impossible, it can't be done unless I pay them over $350.
I file a complaint online with the PUC (about 5 minutes) and the number transfers 2 BUSINESS DAYS LATER. Then they waste the time writing me 3 physical letters (one personalized non-boilerplate), 4 e-mails and 2 phone calls (one a customer satisfaction survey about my experience with P/S/A ?!?), wasting at least 20 manhours when they could have just done it.
There you go, my foreign brothers, THAT is why people hate the monopoly phone companies...
Re:stalemate (Score:5, Interesting)
If AllegedOwner sues InnocentCompany for infringement of a patent on LameIdea and the patent is declared invalid in the process, there should be some cost the AllegedOwner should pay. Perhaps in such a case, AllegedOwner (and all entities with a common parent and any subsequent spinoffs, etc) must pay InnocentUser all profits (perhaps revenue even) ever gained from LameIdea and lose the right to ever use LameIdea without buying a license from InnocentCompany (on terms suitable to InnocentCompany or assignee). Note that this pretty much just makes AllegedOwner subject to just what InnocentCompany would have been subject to if the patent were ruled valid. All other players of course would get to use the LameIdea w/o charge (as there's no patent on it anymore).
After all, AllegedOwner was very sure it was a valid, good patent (and, with this provision, might actually *believe* this before suing). This would also be a great way for the little guy to be able to find competent legal representation when sued for patent infringement (after all, the alleged infringer really wasn't expecting a patent license fee so would probably be willing to assign all such rights to a group of lawyers).
Re:Devil lives in the details (Score:3, Interesting)
You've also created a situation where not only the invention covered by the patent, but every step in the process of bringing the invention to market would have to be disclosed -- process of refining the invention, incorporating it into a larger product, product strategy (maybe the market is not ready to use or pay for the product), marketing decisions, and the list goes on.
What if a company was to invent a great invention but it took eleven years before the production technology matured to where the product made economic sense to actually put on the market? Too bad for them? You shouldn't invent something that's too expensive to sell?
Finally, try to prove you've developed any kind of complex invention "from the ground up", if there is already a published patent covering the invention. You'll see a lot of engineers in internet cafe's using fake IDs to download patent searches.
have Verizon failed to offer a license deal? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, if Verizon were to sit on the tech and not exploit it (a defensive patent) then Vonage could force them to accede to a reasonable license term.
If Vonage simply didn't know about the patent and Verizon are using it themselves (which it seems they are), all Vonage can hope is that they'll get a license. It's tough but that's what "granting a monopoly on exploitation of a novel technology" means - only one company / person goes home with the money.
Of course it's probably better for Verizon to offer a license unless they can take over Vonage's customers for themselves.
It does seem hard on Vonage, but they should have done their research. If they too have made some novel advances in this field then things usually get resolved in some cross-licenseing agreement (involving cloaks and daggers!). So this is the patent system working properly - the innovators win
I've not looked in detail but the patent in question may be one of the so-called submarine patents that used to be a feature of the US system but which now (see eg http://www.meti.go.jp/english/report/data/g400112
---
#1 - thus now ungranted patents are published in the US which has led the uninitiated to believe that the USPTO grants everything, commonly the initial filing is published then only the amended claims (which define the monopoly) are re-published.
Re:It's Bigger than Vonage--Think Cable Telephones (Score:2, Interesting)
The phone companies could also have their cake and eat it too. They've been arguing to the FCC that they needed DSL excluded from competition. "After all, cable companies can compete with phone service now and do not have to share their lines", said the phone companies. "We need television deregulation. Cable companies can now compete for telephone service, so Cable companies can face that competition from us now.", say the phone companies.
Sorry to reply to my own comment, but this looks like one major hoodwink by the phone company. They f'ing suck.
Re:They're a public utility (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:stalemate (Score:3, Interesting)
Patents, copyrights, and trademarks do not overlap at all, although they may each apply to a different aspect of a single product.
A patent protects an invention generally. In order to be patentable, the invention must be useful, novel, and nonobvious. That is, it must actually work, it must never have been invented before, and it cannot be a minor variation on what is already known to people having an ordinary skill in the field the invention is in (in this case software). If you get a patent, then it covers the invention no matter if someone later independently invents the same thing, and no matter what the implementation of the covered invention. So basically, it would deal with the general way in which certain aspects of the program worked.
A copyright protects a creative work. In order to be copyrightable, the work must be an original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium. Useful devices, such as machines with gears and wheels and so forth are not copyrightable. However, software manages to straddle the line as it is both a literary work (it is basically a written set of instructions for a machine, and not a machine itself) though that work is normally of the most value when it is executed, causing a machine to act as instructed, at which point it is rather machine-like itself. A copyright only protects work which is original from being copied. If someone independently writes the same thing without having copied it, then even though it is identical, their work is both copyrightable (because it originated with them) and is non-infringing (because they didn't copy it). This is quite different from patents! Further, a copyright only protects the expression of an idea, and not an idea itself. That is, it protects a single implementation, and perhaps some trivial variations of that implementation (otherwise people could change one word, copy everything else, and claim to avoid infringement, which wouldn't be fair) of software, but does not prevent other people from making different implementations or independently re-doing the same one. Again, this is unlike a patent, which covers an invention across all implementations.
And a trademark protects a name and the reputation that goes with that name. This is partially a form of consumer protection (if you want to buy Adobe Photoshop then you don't want other products to use the same name to try to trick you into getting them instead of what you were really after) and partially a way of preventing unfair competition (where people could let Adobe build up a good reputation and then leech off of it for other products). It doesn't protect anything useful, like patents do, and it doesn't prevent copying like copyrights do (because if it's absolutely identical, then the reasoning for protecting a mark goes out the window). Trademarks are about protecting reputation and indicating that a good has the same level of quality as other goods marked the same way (whether for good or ill).
To recap: patents cover underlying principles, copyrights cover specific implementations, and trademarks cover market reputation.
What you were describing was basically like a copyright.
What I think would work best would be to reform both the patent and copyright systems. I don't think we need software patents because the purpose of software patents is to spur invention, bringing-to-market, and disclosure, which otherwise wouldn't have happened. But in the software industry, unlike many other fields, there are many other extremely strong incentives to invent and bring to market. Disclosure I'll get to in a moment. This being the case, the added incentive of a patent might not actually be helping things. And the burden of having a patent, which does prevent competition in the market and which can discourage inventors if they'll face rent-seeking from existing patent holders, may be greater than its benefits. For most fields of invention, this is not the case, but for software, we do