Alright. Well, I did read the patent claims in question. What claims were found to have been infringed?
"Minute Entry for proceedings held before Judge Claude M. Hilton: Jury Trial cont'd on 3/8/2007. Appearances as previous. Jury question rec'd
3/7/07 addressed w/counsel. Jury reinstructed re: name translation and given the definition of 'method comprising'. The jury returned to the jury room to continue deliberations. The jury returned to the courtroom at 2:50 w/a verdict finding infringement of claim 27 of the '574 patent, claim 20 of the '711 patent and Claims 1, 6, 7, and 8 of the '880 patent and finding that the infringement was not willful. The jury did not find infringement of claims 1 & 2 of the '869 patent and Claims 1 & 2 of the '275 patent. The jury found none of the claims at issue in patents '574, '711, '869, '275, or '880 to be invalid. The jury awarded pltfs damages in the amount of $58,000,000.00 and found the reasonable royalty percentage to be 5.5%. Judgment to be entered in accordance with the verdict. Pltfs motion for Permanent Injunction to heard on 3/23/07 @ 10:00. (Court Reporter Linnell.) (tarm, ) (Entered: 03/08/2007)"These were garbage claims in a set of garbage patents. Nothing IMHO came even close to meeting the test of originality and non-obviousness. But juries are not generally competent to make that judgment; usually it's left to courts. The jury did rule in this case, but then that's like asking the cook at your local Taco Bell to peer-review a physics paper on quantum chromodynamics. It is meaningless and really an exercise in stupidity.
On to specifics. Only a few claims actually were upheld. One was claim 27 of the '527 patent (26 included for completeness):
- A method comprising:
receiving a name translation request at a server coupled to a public packet data network;
translating a name included in the request into a destination telephone number associated with a name included in the request; and
transmitting a reply containing both the destination telephone number and a packet data network address of a telephone gateway coupled between the public packet data network and a telephone network through the public packet data network to a calling device.
- A method as in claim 26, wherein the address is an Internet Protocol address.
Gee, that's not obvious, or prior art, is it? Boy that American inventiveness sure worked hard for that one! How about the '711 patent, wherein only Claim 20 was found violated:
- A method comprising:
receiving a name translation request at a server coupled to a public packet data network;
executing a conditional analysis in response to the name translation request;
if the conditional analysis produces a first result, translating a name included in the name translation request into a first destination address;
if the conditional analysis produces a second result, translating the name included in the name translation request into a second destination address; and
transmitting a response message containing the first or the second destination address to a calling device for use in establishing communication at least partially through the public packet data network.
- A method as in claim 15; wherein:
the first and second destination address includes a numeric Internet Protocol address; and
the second destination address further includes information relating to call routing via a public switched telephone network.
No, sirree, that doesn't look at all like DNS or MX records or anything else invented before 1997!
Finally, the third upheld patent, the "not willful" violations of the '880 patent, where only claims 1, 6, 7 and 8 were found violated:
- A method comprising:
registering a wireless telephone terminal in a localized wireless gateway system;
transmitting registration data identifying the gateway system from the localized wireless gateway system to a home location register database through a public packet data communication network;
receiving a request from a calling computer coupled to the public packet data communication network for a call to the wireless telephone terminal;
in response to the request, accessing the home location register database and obtaining a packet data address for the localized wireless gateway system;
using the address to set up a voice communication through the public packet data communication network and the localized wireless gateway system between the calling computer and the wireless telephone terminal.
- A method as in claim 1, wherein the public packet data communication network is a packet switched network.
- A method as in claim 6, wherein the packet switched network comprises a system of interlinked data networks using TCP/IP protocol.
- A method as in claim 7, wherein the system of interlinked data networks comprises the Internet.
The '880 patent is about wireless phones, not central to Vonage at all, so it's not clear how it is even relevant. But it basically combines existing technologies, just waving "TCP/IP" over them as if that made them new again, like your basic dotcom "business method" patent rush of the 1990s.
In other words, Verizon is abusing the patent system in order to stamp out competition. What else is new? Liars are liars.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It seems to me that a lot of these 'patent pirates' like Verizon, etc are going to pick over the entire internet -- the hard work of _many_ netters over the years -- and where they find some little unobtrusive thing which the earlier builders had not bothered to patent way-back-when -- because the internet was intended to be open architecture -- open to all -- now, Verizon and who else is going to rush in trying to grab it up and claim 'they were first'. Didn't I say, in 1987 or somewhere back in those days that the men we recognize as our true 'founders' would have been very well advised to clamp this thing down totally? Didn't I say, sometime around 1993-95 that Tim Berners-Lee should be damned for not tighting all the nuts and bolts on this web before the telcos were able to beat him to it? Oh no, I was told, they are much too anarchist-driven for anything like that. A bunch of college guys trying to be (albiet benevolent) anarchists; and telco says you wanna play that game, let's play it; but keep the benevolency to yourself. And with their infinite supply of money and resources they (telco) will indeed win and we will indeed lose. Not today, not this week; the 'death of the net' has not yet been scheduled. But you know where things are going, I am sure. PAT]