Vonage, which
operates voice over internet protocol (VOIP) phone systems,
recently lost a court battle over the technology, which it said did
not violate Verizon's patents.
The judge in the case has now issued a
permanent injunction against Vonage, agreeing with Verizon that
allowing Vonage to use the technology while paying patent licence
fees would have cause its business irreparable harm.
Vonage was ordered earlier this month to pay
$58 million in damages to Verizon and to agree to pay a 5.5%
royalty on future use of the technology pending a decision on the
issue of a permanent injunction.
Verizon's case was that Vonage had wilfully
violated seven of its patents relating to phone technology and it
claimed $197m in damages. The court ruled that Vonage violated
three patents, while Verizon had by then scaled back its claim to
involve just five.
Vonage was ordered to pay just $58m because
the court ruled that the violation was not wilful, which entitles
the injured party to triple damages.
The
patents involved in the case relate to the connection between
Vonage's network and the standard telephone network. Patents
relating to billing systems were ruled not to have been
violated.
The case, being heard in the Federal District
Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, will continue in two
weeks' time, when both sides will argue the issue of whether or not
the injunction should apply while the parties wait for an appeal to
be heard.
The judge in the case said that the injunction
would not apply while the parties waited for that hearing in two
weeks' time.
"We are pleased the court has decided to issue
a permanent injunction to protect Verizon's patented innovations
for offering commercial-quality VoIP and Wi-Fi services," said John
Thorne, Verizon's senior vice president and deputy general
counsel.
Vonage's Sharon O'Leary said in a statement
that the company relied on technology which it believed did not
belong to Verizon. "[Vonage relied] on open-standard, off-the-shelf
technology when developing its service" and argued that court
evidence failed to prove otherwise," she said.
