Patent, Patent, Whose Got The Patent

So here’s the story out of the Red Herring saying the sky is falling on VoIP and VoIP companies.

I don’t think so.

1) Verizon could license the technology. $58 million dollars is less than 10 million a year. Vonage’s spend is less than that per week on Marketing.

2) Other companies likely have technology and patents that do the same thing is my guess. Some would love the extra income.

3) If Verizon’s patent is the only one, then every cable company also has to pay up. Do you think they are going to bail out on VoIP so soon?

4) Vonage does not use a softswitch architecture of their own. They use Session Border Controllers, SIP Proxies and Media Gateways to terminate and route calls. My guess is, without being a patent lawyer or expert that this is the crux of the issue.

5) You notice none of the other players who have invested in SoftSwitch architecture are being sued by Verizon, thus it makes me think there is an out….that Vonage hasn’t thought of yet.

On a related note, the EFF is looking to bust a patent on call termination too. Here’s the request on Privacy Digest.