Re: Why didn't Verizon sue Cisco instead?

There's that, but this was a calculated move by Verizon to try and kill Voice over Internet Protocol. It wasn't as successful as they hoped it woudl be.

Personally I'd be happy to see Verizon and at&t tank at any given moment.

But wouldn't Vonage have brought this up in its defence to show the hypocrisy of this lawsuit ?

The only logical validity of this is if Vonage had developped its own software instead of purchasing a turn-key solution from Cisco or other vendor.

OR: Cisco's agreement with Verizon would have allowed Cisco to sell its VoIP systems to private users (such as corporations implementing their own internal VoIP networks), but Vonage took that equipment and deployed it to provide public services, at which point, some agreement between Verizon and Cisco would no longer have applied. (this is just speculation on my part).

In such a speculative case, the question becomes whether Vonage would have deployed the Cisco equipment with a warning/knowledge that it wasn't really legal to deploy it as a public network.

In the end though, even if it is just speculation that Cisco gear was involved, it hurts Cisco's image. Do you really want to buy any Cisco gear if you risk being sued by some legacy Telco that is starving for revenus ?

Cisco makes a lot of switch gear for Verizon, the patents belong to Verizon. This action is very much like the law suits involving the makers of the Blackberry.

The methods to talk over the net are open source, but the way that they link to the switched network is owned by Verizon; actually much earlier then Verizon; GTE Systems had the patents.

I believe that Verizon has tried to settle this and just could not.

No district court judge not wanting to be reversed on appeal would consider for a moment letting Vonage bring that up in court. It's not a defense to patent infringement, which are listed in 35 U.S.C. 282. Whether another is also infringing the patent has no bearing on whether Vonage did. And depending on the claims of the patent and what Cisco supplies, Cisco may not even be an infringer.

Keep in mind that supplying equipment that can be used to infringe a patent is not infringement if that equipment has another substantial noninfringing use. 35 U.S.C. 271(c).

Again, there is no requirement at a patent owner sue every infringer to go after any infringer.

No but providing a piece of software that even remotely facilitates file sharing can be thought to violate copyright law. It's a really screwed up world we live in.

Oh sure they did. I bet they asked for about 90% royalties.

I believe it was 5% which is pretty much standard.

Not at all, at least in the United States. Copyright law, after the Supreme Court's Grokster decision, tracks patent law. If you supply something that has a substantial noninfringing use, you will not be liable for contributory infringement. But if you actively promote infringement, you will be liable for inducement of infringement.

And just because one if liable under some theory doesn't mean that the patent or copyright owner has to sue the person. But just because the patent or copyright owner doesn't sue everybody doesn't mean that the competitor that bothers the patent or copyright owner the most won't get sued.

Here's an interesting point - A small service provider that I deal with carry all of Verizons traffic in the Western Pacific. They carry the voice using VoIP with Cisco equpiment...

Maybe Verizon could sue them so that they loose their service in the Pacific ;-)

James

That was what the courts gave them. I was just making a point about why Vonage might not have settled with Verizon out of court.