Vonage, the largest independent VoIP provider in the US, on October 25 was ordered by the lower court to pay Verizon $120m if its appeal was denied. If Vonage had been successful in its appeal for a rehearing, it would have had to pay only $80 to Verizon.
The Verizon settlement follows a federal jury ruling in March that ordered Vonage to pay $58m in damages to Verizon, as well as hefty royalty fees, for allegedly infringing on Verizon patents. Verizon initially claimed, in June 2006, that Vonage violated three of its patents.
In September, Vonage ended a separate patent-infringement lawsuit filed against it by Sprint Nextel when it agreed to pay $80m to the carrier as part of a settlement deal. A week after the Sprint deal, Vonage settled yet another patent dispute for an undisclosed amount with voice-messaging company Klausner Technologies and agreed to license technology from the company.
However, Vonage must still content with a separate patent suit from the country’s leading telco AT&T. Vonage said it was currently negotiating with AT&T, but the suit may still go to trial.
