I guess we should be grateful that the federal government has magnanimously agreed to suspend shutting Vonage down on appeal of a patent verdict against it. For now, at least, it may escape the $612M damages that were extorted out of BlackBerry. And why did Vonage lose and might be shut down? Because its service is covered by someone else’s patent, which gives them a monopoly on this concept:
1. we patent the idea of interconnecting voice transmission over the internet and over the regular telephone system;
2. to make idea #1 work there will need to be a cross reference table associating telephone numbers and internet addresses so that calls can be routed to the right place.
Ain’t patent law great?
Update: I wonder if Vonage and BlackBerry are celebrating World IP Day today?
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So, if I patented this, would I one day be rich?
1. We patent the idea of a device for reducing carbon emissions from motor vehicles;
2. to make idea #1 work there will need to be a chemical process to separate carbon from other emissions and route the carbon to a receptical that allows for disposal without releasing the carbon.
If yes, how much will you charge me to file this?
Do I get a discount if I pay in gold?
receptacle…per Websters.
The ideas Verizon patented are essentially covered by papers that were published by Xerox Parc covering their “Etherphone” system in the early 1980s, and by similar papers on a (coincidentally) identically named system developed at Bell Communications Research in the late 1980s. I’m happy to give details if anyone cares to contact me directly.
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