2007 News Wrap-Up from TMC
Source: www.voip-news.com
With the lull in between two major holidays, there ain’t a lot going on, so it’s a good time of year to pause and reflect. The folks at TMC did a nice wrap-up on what we saw in the world of VoIP this year … new companies, new lawsuits and more. Let’s hope Vonage has a much better ‘08. You can read the piece in its entirety right here, but in the meantime, to start you off:
Vonage Lawsuits
One thing’s for sure; 2007 was a rough year for VoIP provider Vonage. The trouble started in February when a case originally filed in June, 2006 by Verizon got underway. Verizon claimed Vonage was infringing upon its patents. The technology in question was pretty integral to Vonage’s operations, and as a result it looked like the company might not survive the legal battles.
After many months of struggles, Vonage and Verizon finally settled the case in October, for a maximum of $120 million in damages. By then, however, Vonage was reeling from a legal loss to Sprint and battling a similar lawsuit brought by AT&T. (The AT&T case was settled in November.) Making matters worse, in mid-December Vonage was hit with another patent infringement suit, this time from Nortel. The company ended the year still on pretty uncertain ground.
